Don't know why
by WhatIfImaMermaid
Summary: It's probably not love at first sight. But he likes her, a lot, from the very beginning.
1. Chapter 1

Whether she's looking for him or not, she finds him sitting on a chair in the observation deck closest his quarters, where he's accustomed to spending his nights when he's not his cabin—or hers.

"Captain," she says, and it's a little different, a little more hesitant than all the other _captain_ s that came before.

He doesn't stand or turn, because—why would he, at this point? He just presses the heel of his hand against his temple and the pounding underneath.

"Why… Why is it that they didn't ask for a reference from your current commanding officer?"

 _From me_ , he means.

"I'm not sure. Maybe—" she starts, and then she breaks off, which makes Jim think that she actually _quite_ sure. "The Antares had access to my service records and evaluations through Starfleet. It is… understood, that if a senior officer is initiating an application for an external position, the current current circumstances might be less than ideal, and the captain might not wish for them to leave, and perhaps even give…" She hesitates. "Misleading references."

It gives him pause. "You think that's what I'd have done."

"No." Her answer is immediate. He's not looking at her, but he bets she's shaking her head.

"That's not why you didn't tell me, then."

To that, she doesn't reply. But it's fine. The both know why she didn't tell him, which makes this meeting, and whatever conversation might come of it, useless. Utterly useless. A last, useless attempt, after months, years of equally useless, clumsy attempts, and it hasn't been fun, for sure, but before now he has never, ever wished he hadn't seen her in that stupid bar, or started hitting on her like the idiot kid he was, or decided to bring her on his ship.

A no-win, if he's ever seen one.

Although she would certainly think of this differently.

"Well." He gets on his feet and walks up to her until they're standing face to face, the distance between them perfectly appropriate for a captain and his soon-to-be former communication officer.

Not a month ago he was inside her, hands clutching the sheet while he pressed a kiss into the corner of her mouth.

He smiles his captain smile.

"Good luck, lieutenant. I hope your new assignment will be everything you wish for."

...

It becomes clear to Jim about thirty-five seconds after stepping on campus for the first time, that people at the Academy can be divided into two groups.

The ones who know that he's Jim Kirk, and the ones who try to pretend they don't.

"Your father still holds the record for highest accuracy in 0-G conditions," a white-haired men who looks way too old to still be an instructor whispers in his ear during his first space jump training.

"…and always remember, the transmission of the log is the very last thing you should secure before boarding the Kelvin pod." For what has to be tenth time during the presentation, the lieutenant's eyes dart towards Jim before sliding away just as quickly. If everyone else's lag behind, it's just by a few seconds.

"You were _born_ for this," Archer tells him every other time they meet in the hallways, voice earnest and one arm thrown around Jim's shoulder, and even the times he doesn't speak it's still there, shiny in his eyes—and heavy, unfamiliar in Jim's chest.

He's annoyed and—maybe stupidly—somewhat surprised. Unlike half of the students in his class he was never a Starfleet brat, and the extent of the cult of George Kirk is news to him, a widespread tradition that amuses and repulses him at the same time. The comparison, the conflation of _the two Kirks_ is just plain idiotic, especially when Jim cares so little about making his father proud, this abstract, distant man who made choices—a choice, in particular—that Jim can't even begin to conceive.

 _Sloppy_ , he thinks, as commemorative holos of the Kelvin disaster are shown all over campus, starting at six AM on his birthday and still playing when he returns to his room, sometime one or three hours past curfew, the comm number of a guy he will likely never see again scribbled on his forearm. _There's always another option_. There's always a way to win, and George Kirk wasn't able to find it. It brings him down a couple of notches, in Jim's book. It should in everyone else's, too.

"I'm not here to prove anything. And I'm not here for my parents, and for sure not for my father, who I've never even fucking spoken to. Or for Pike, or Archer, or that annoying chick who keeps asking me if I feel _triggered_ in 'Fleet history class. I have zero interest in competing with anyone." _But myself_ , he doesn't add.

Bones just stares at him, leaning back in his desk chair. "Right. How did we get to this topic, again?"

"I'm here 'cause this is _fun_." Bones' eyebrow rises to his hairline, and Jim ignores him, sinking deeper into his bed. "Well, some of it. It's something to do, at least." He stares at a black dot on the ceiling. Maybe a moth. They've been having a moth problem, fucking student dorms. "I just wish they stopped this whole predestined child crap, that's all. If I head the word 'legacy' one more time, I swear…"

Bones' laugh feels bitter. Which, Jim's starting to realize, it often does.

"Don't fool yourself, kid. Life's nothing but being held to unreasonable expectations. We're all compared against someone else, all the damn time. Your someone else just happens to be your dead father. At least people are upfront about it."

Jim presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I just want to go to space, see cool stuff, and be high enough in the chain of command that people can't order me around. And get laid often, possibly." He's had too much to drink. Again. He's drifting off already, wearing his leather jacket and boots, and tomorrow morning—hell, in two hours—he's going to regret it.

Bones snorts when Jim's almost asleep. "Yeah, well. I don't know that that's compatible with the 'Fleet's mission."

 _Fuck the 'Fleet's mission_ , he thinks before blacking out.

...

He reads her name on the sign right outside her room and immediately recognizes it—Cadet Uhura, typed in a red font with a small gold and silver IDIC symbol on the right; it looks serious and a little pretentious, probably because it clashes terribly with her roommates', who decorated hers with a bunch of hearts and stars and smily faces, and a couple of Saturn-like planets for good measure.

So he knows from the first night that the girl from the bar—who basically got him to join Starfleet, really—sleeps roughly thirty meters away from him. Still, he doesn't cross paths with her for several weeks, not even when her roommate reveals to be as fun and awesome as the name sign suggested and he starts spending considerable chunks of his free time in their room. Sitting on Cadet Uhura's very neat, ridiculously well-made bed while he waits for Gaila to finish whatever homework she has to turn in within the next three minutes so that they can finally start fucking. Feeling a little naughty for introducing what has to be five hundred percent more wrinkles into the painfully tight bedspread.

There are, apparently, people who make their bed every morning and change their sheets more than once a year. It might be Jim's first real cultural shock.

"She likes the library. And the linguistics labs. And the long-range observatory. And the—"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it."

"So that's why she's never around here. I like it when she is, though. Always lends me her socks when I'm out of clean ones. And she's nice. Terran people can sometimes be… you know." Gaila shrugs, and then looks at Jim from head to toe, as if realizing his species for the first time. "Well, maybe you don't know. Anyway, she's not like that. She's great."

Jim has been thinking along those lines, too. That she seemed great. She _looks_ great. And not just the hair and legs and the smile and the—yeah, all of that, of course, but not that at all, actually.

It's the little shelf, the one right next to her bed, that's full of real, actual books, and as if that weren't rare enough, to find someone who doesn't think that old-style books are a waste of space and time and effort, it's the titles that give him pause.

There is a seventy-two percent overlap with the content of his own little shelf, the one next to his very messy, ridiculously unmade bed. He calculated it after being in her room for the the third time.

"Don't tell her you've been in here, though, if you meet her. We have a strict no sex policy. She once walked in on me and Anna and Kari and Sh'thai and had a minor freak out. I think she must have been raised in a very sheltered environment." Gaila shakes her head, but her voice is sympathetic. "Poor girl. Oh, Chaluth and Josh were there, too."

...

It's more than just the books.

There's that time he catches sight of her from across the gym while she's dropping a dude over twice her weight, collected and unwinded, hand brushing something—probably chunks of the guy's teeth—off her Starfleet t-shirt.

There's the fact that he sees her a lot around the quad, sometimes walking briskly by herself, more often with cadets from her department, sometimes laughing and other times talking somberly, and friendship is something he's never had a lot of and always admired.

There's that article she published in undergrad on a linguistics journal—N, her first name begins with an N. Nicole? Norah? _Name_? Gaila refuses to tell him for some reason Jim refuses to ask —, something full of stuff like neural pathways and machine learning algorithms and bound morphemes, which he reads three times before realizing that he needs at least twelve other papers and five book chapters worth of knowledge to understand. He trudges through all of it, and by the end he's a little dumbfounded by the brilliance of her research.

There's the way he can just picture her playing as hard as she works.

There's the fact that she turned him down after he told her his name. Yep, his last name, too.

There's her breasts, her eyes, her hips, her smile, her voice, and the way she moves, precise and graceful, which a better guy than he would pretend not to notice, which Jim—

Yeah. No.

He can't look away.

She's in two of his classes, stupid stuff that is mandatory but both mind-numbingly easy and unlikely to ever be of use to anyone in the whole universe. She sits considerably closer to the podium than he does, and—as far as he can tell—attends far more regularly, actually arriving on time, listening intently and taking notes and raising her hand to _make a very valid point, Cadet Uhura_ , and only leaving once the instructor is done droning on and on about the most self-evident shit. Jim can't bring himself to do any of it without wanting to chop off his own ears and maybe the entirety of his head, too, which means exactly zero chances of catching her before of after lecture.

Until about halfway through the semester, when they happen to be standing in line side by side to get their midterms back.

"Hey. Uhura, right?" he tells her, accepting his test from the RA with a nod.

Of course, it's right. Of course, it's a stupid questions. But it's not as if any of his usual openings are likely to work any better. He still has a slightly deviated nasal septum to prove it.

She barely spares his dazzling smile a glance, and keeps on walking, her nose buried in her test. "Yep."

"How's it going?"

"Marvelously," she says, scrolling down the PADD and frowning a little.

"Good. Hey. I was thinking, this is a tough class. Do you maybe want to… I don't know. Put together a study group? Or meet up to review the material? I could really use your help with the whole enthalpy thing—"

He arm darts out, and the fingers of her right hand grab the edge of his PADD, tipping it away from his chest and towards her.

It's there, at the very top of the the screen, typed in a very large, very easily readably font.

100/100.

 _Too_ easily readable, really. What the fuck, RA.

He dials up his smile and staunchly refuses to flush.

"Or _I_ could help _you_ with the whole enthalpy thing…"

She glares at him, a weird mix of contempt and amusement and condescension that is oddly familiar—from that night in Iowa, for sure.

Still, it's probably— _surely_ —the longest she's ever looked at him. By far.

It's not unpleasant.

He could get used to this, really.

She pivots and leaves before he can scramble for another stupid-ass line. "Bye, Kirk."

It's probably not love at first sight.

But he likes her, a lot, from the very beginning.

...

"…main mistake people make when attempting these calculations without the aid of a dedicated software is failing to take into account the shifts in the gravitational field originated by the planet's orbital trajectory. Which of course can completely derail the approximation of the vectors, because underestimating the planet tilt by only point one degrees can lead to deficit in the trajectory of—"

 _Up to twenty-four degrees_. Jim yawns, twice, a third time, and then leans towards his right. The seat closest to him is empty except for a Starfleet-issue messenger bag, but on the next one…

"Hey." He leans further. "Psst."

He might assume that she simply didn't hear him—if her lips didn't purse, just a little, just enough for him to notice. Her stylus continues sliding over her PADD, and Jim wonders what's to write down, anyway. It's all pretty self-explanatory, all in the formulas, all easy to derive, and all boring as fuck.

"Is this going to be on the test?" he whispers a little bit louder, but she's really, _really_ good at ignoring him. "Hey! Uhura."

"Ssssh." She doesn't lift her eyes from her desk. "I'm trying to follow along."

Following along is overrated.

"What did you get on the Navigation test?"

"Shh. Not telling you," she whispers back.

"Ninety-three?"

She just smiles and keeps on writing.

"Higher? Ninety-five?"

"I'm not gonna tell you. And lower your voice."

"Ninety-eight?"

"Commander Larkin doesn't give higher than ninety-seven percent," Nyota murmurs, and suddenly Jim feels like smiling, too.

"Well, we know for a fact that it's just a rumor."

Uhura's finally looks up from her PADD, eyes focused on his from across the desk, and yep.

This is kind of the moment he started this whole conversation for.

"Drop the royal we, Kirk. You did not get ninety-eight percent."

He smiles at her. " _You_ didn't get ninety-eight percent."

She narrows her eyes. "I'm not gonna tell you my grade."

"Well, then it seems we have reached an impa—"

"Cadet Kirk, Cadet Uhura." Commander Gordon's voice is suddenly louder across the classroom. "Anything you would like to share with the class?"

"Uh, nope." Jim smiles his most dashing smile. "Uhura here just asked me out on a date. Told her I'd have to think about it."

The commander raises both eyebrow.

Half of the cadets turn to stare at Jim.

Pretty much everyone giggles.

Everyone, except for Uhura, that is.

"Cadet Uhura, this is not the time, nor the place. Please refrain yourself until after the lecture is over. As I was saying, the axis tilt adjustment cannot be factored in unless the relative coordinates of the planet are known…"

"Kirk. You know I'm going to end you, right?"

Jim sits back in his chair and just winks at her.

...

He does this thing, whenever he sees her in the mess at the Academy, sometimes chatting with Gaila or Christine or Bones, sometimes lost in thought while she methodically goes through her food, more often staring into a PADD and typing between bites.

He does this thing, which is stealing food from her plate.

It's usually walnuts, and the odd olive, because for some reason that probably has to do with calibrating macronutrients or maximizing metabolic intake she always makes herself the same exact salad—all that avocado, gross. It's kind of fun, because unlike Bones, or Sam, or most people Jim surrounds himself with, she has a pretty high level of basic decency and never tries to stab his hand with her fork.

Though it's in her eyes that she really, _really_ wants to.

Which only makes Jim want to harass her more.

It's a vicious cycle, they're in.

"Kirk."

He chews with relish. The nut is meaty, and crunchy.

"Uhura."

"Just go get your own food, please. There's an entire salad bar at your disposal."

He shrugs, and steals another one. "Good stuff."

"They all taste the same, you know." She grabs her PADD and balances it on her salad bowl. It's a little precarious, but it's definitely blocking most access points.

Jim swallows and smiles. "Nah. Yours taste better."

"And they're all free."

"Is anything really free in this world, though?"

"Also, the mess is half empty. You don't _have_ to sit next to me and steal my food, you know? You could… I don't know." She cocks her head, pensive. He hair falls sleek and shiny on her shoulder. "Not."

He could. He could not steal her food. He could sit someplace else. He could get lunch from the other mess, the one closer to the side of campus where most command trek cadets hand out, which has way better soft serve options. Or he could be rolled up in fetal position in a corner of the room, minding his own business, trying to consume as little oxygen as possible, and she'd still find him crass and loud annoying and irritating—which, to be fair, he absolutely is—and ignore the shit out of him.

He know because he has tried. He has tried avoiding bragging about his grades, and he has tried parading them under her nose. He has played dumb, and he has turned on the genius act. He has spoken to her in Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite, and he has not spoken to her at all. He has been, at different times, funny, polite, teasing, distant, sensitive, and just plain friendly.

Being obnoxious, at least, gets him what he wants.

The attention.

Hence, the walnuts.

"Are you comm people coming for the survival training in Oregon?"

"Of course."

He leans forward in his chair and takes a sip of her water. "Is that pretty blond girl you were having coffee with the other day coming, too?"

She rolls her eyes. "Kirk."

"Hey. Asking for a friend."

"I swear, if you fall into a ditch because you're too busy ogling her to look where you're going, I'm leaving you there to die."

"Ah, so she's coming."

"I didn't say that. Kirk, just leave her alone."

"Hey. I'm not gonna harass her or anything. I'm just gonna showcase my charming personality to her. People are usually into that."

"Are they."

He stands and grabs a cherry from her tray. "I'll make sure to bring my most dashing environmental suit." On his way out, he can feel her stare on him, narrow and hostile, but it's not quite unpleasant. Not at all, actually.

He stops by the salad bar to get a handful of nuts, and sure enough, they just don't taste as good.

...

He finds out mostly by chance, right after their second attempt at the Kobayashi Maru. Just a few months before Vulcan, before Nero, before everything, when he still figures that as soon as they graduate she'll probably end up on the Enterprise, which she seems to be a little obsessed with, while he's ready to grit his teeth and aim for a higher position—first-officer, oh well, better than nothing, he supposes—on one of the less coveted ships.

Not that he's not planning to end up on the Enterprise, sooner or later.

"This was my last time."

"What? No." He's busy aggressively stuffing the simulation uniform down the recycler bin, so that he doesn't register what she just said until she's almost out of the locker room. He waves goodbye to the rest of the team and immediately jogs after her. "Wait. Uhura—we have to do it again, until we can figure this out."

"Yeah, well. Good luck with it. I've got better, more productive things to do."

"Come on. You know there's gotta be a way. I need you to—"

"What if there isn't one? Maybe we're missing the point. Maybe the point is what we can learn from this, not whether we can _beat_ it—"

"What? No. Of course we can beat it!" He realizes that they're almost shouting when she stops in her tracks to look at him, and he lowers his tone. "Listen, I'm pretty sure one way or another I can beat everything—"

She lets out a humorless laugh. "Listen to yourself." She turns and starts walking, looking straight ahead. He follows, and apparently it's not a good idea. "Just—Go away, Kirk."

"What did I do? Why are you mad at me, now?"

"Just leave me alone, okay?"

"Wait. What did I do now? Why are you—why is your baseline just… hating me?!"

Her expression shift minutely, and suddenly she looks angry. Not irritated, like she usually is when he's around. She looks pissed, though whether it's due to the question Jim just asked or to the fact that the simulation has been bad this time, really bad, embarrassingly bad, even worse that than the first, he doesn't really know.

Talk about a learning curve.

"I don't have time to hate you, Kirk."

"Ok. Fair enough. You do find the time to dislike me in your busy schedule, though? Is it because of the TA position? Is it because last semester my GPA was higher than—"

"Oh, _god_. Of course you would bring up—"

"I'm just trying to figure out—"

"—that once in your life, when I was having a really busy semester because of my internship, you had a _marginally_ higher GPA than I did—"

"—no, I—"

"—you are _so_ conceited."

"I'm not—" He's laughing now. He's laughing, and it's making her madder, so he really should stop. "Why am I conceited? Because I did better than you at something? Once?"

"Kirk. You _think_ you're better than everyone else. All the time."

"Well, I _am_ better than lots of people at lots of things—where are you going? I didn't mean you!" He has to walk faster again to catch up with her. The quad is not crowded, but a few cadets have turned to stare at them, at the way she's walking, staring straight ahead and looking a little murderous while he buzzes around her. Jim takes a second to shoot a grin to a pretty girl he's almost sure he's made out with before.

"Listen, we can figure this out. There must be a way to solve the simulation—"

"Since you're having trouble counting, let me remind you that we have taken it twice. That's one hundred percent more times than people are allowed. We might not even be _allowed_ to take it a third time."

"I'll talk to Pike."

She scoffs. "See? You think you're above the rules."

"The rules are stupid!"

She shakes her head without even looking at him.

"Listen, I'm fucking willing to work until I am better than anyone else, and so are you. And that's what bugs you, right? That we're the exact same, and that sometimes I'll do stuff a little bit better than you." She's going a little bit faster, still completely ignoring him, so he starts jogging until he's in front of her and walking backwards. "That, and, that even though this Academy is fucking hell for everybody and we're all miserable and don't even have time to brush out teeth some days at least I manage to have fun through it…" He stops in his tracks, and he's standing right in front of her, which means that _she_ has to stop, too, unless she's okay with bumping her entire front into him. Which he'll bet she's not. "…At least _I_ am getting laid."

She doesn't step around him. Doesn't roll her eyes or laugh, either. Instead, she pins him with one of her looks.

He feels a shiver running down his spine.

"Why are you like this, Kirk?"

He gives her his most rehearsed smile, the one that he used in Iowa, the one he knows she finds obnoxious. He regrets it immediately, just like everything that comes out of his mouth afterwards, and fuck the Kobayashi-Maru, because Jim's pretty sure that if his brain weren't fried from being shot at by fifteen different warbirds he'd know better than to say something like this to her.

Maybe.

"You know, I'm bringing it up cause I'm willing help. I'm not an asshole. You could be getting laid, too."

Her expression blanks, and she cocks her head and studies him contemplatively. For a moment, it almost looks like she's considering it.

For a moment.

Jim's heart starts beating faster, and faster yet when she takes a step closer to him and goes on her toes, so that they're—almost—the same height.

"First of all, you _are_ an asshole." Her lips are millimeters from his ear. Something inside Jim whimpers silently. "Second, I _am_ getting laid. And it's glorious."

She's back on her heels, walking around him and heading for the dorms before he can even parse what she just said, leaving him to stare at her retreating form with a frown.

...

"Exactly the person I was looking for."

"If McCoy has locked you out again I'm sure you deserve it and no, you can't sleep in my bathtub. Not again."

A librarian walks by, carrying a stack of actual books and shushing them with a stern look. Jim takes a moment to give him an apologetic grin and a wink and then sits across from Uhura. There are a least six PADDs between them, as well as the empty wrap of a protein bar and the remains of a salad.

He needs her to be as non-irritated with him as possible for this, so he tries to keep his voice low. "You can say that all you want, I know you'd never let me to sleep in the hallway. With the spiders. And the moths."

She doesn't lift her eyes from her work. "Do you, now."

"Listen, I need a favor."

Silence.

"I need a date."

"I told you, Kirk, the Academy doesn't have a prom."

"No, I'm serious." He waits for her stop typing, but she doesn't show any sign of slowing down. "I have to go to Pike's for a dinner thing. Tonight. Semi-formal. And he said I should bring a date."

"Can't." She smiles. "Actually, scratch that. Won't."

"Why?"

"I have plans. I need to finish my computer science homework, and then go for a forty-five minute run, and then shower, and then have a meal, blissfully without you stealing half of it from me since you'll be fed elsewhere, and after that I—"

"Jesus. How in advance do you have your life planned?"

"Ten years, give or take."

Jim is mildly horrified, though he's not sure why he's surprised. "Why do you plan all this shit, anyway? Why can't you just…live?"

"Because," she says, forcefully, and the typing stops for a second or two. " _I_ have actual goals, unlike you, who appear to be driven the sole purpose of annoying your peers."

"Listen, you can run whenever, and you can eat with me at Pike's. And I'll code the homework for you if you go out for dinner with me. Hey, I'll do the whole assignment for you, if you give me a kiss when I take you home. Cheek's fine." He winks, but it's a waste, because she's still staring at the PADD.

"Mmm." She cocks her head, and her hair slips down her shoulder, reminding him, forcefully, of how beautiful she is. It's been years by now, and truth be told, he doesn't really notice that much anymore. When he does it takes him by surprise, and it's a little unwelcome. "The dullness of spending three hours optimizing an inner loop versus the excruciating pain of going out with you and watch you eat off my plate and bamboozle Pike into thinking you're a well-socialized human being—"

"Bamboozle!"

"It's a tough choice. But I'm gonna have to pass on the dinner."

"C'mon Uhura."

"No."

"Please?"

"You do know what _no_ means, right?"

"I will—I don't know. Do your laundry for like, six months."

"First of all, there's no way you're getting anywhere near my underwear. Second, I just can't come out with you. I told you, I'm seeing someone—"

He ignores the bite in his belly. "It doesn't matter. You're not _married_ to this—"

"—and while I know that notions like commitment, and honesty, and faithfulness are quite foreign to you, it still would not be appropriate because I'm pretty sure that Captain Pike knows."

Jim freezes.

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Why would he?"

Her answering smile is not directed at him. It's faint, private.

Secret.

He tells himself he doesn't care, but it only works half-way. One third, tops.

"He would."

He narrows his eyes. "Who is it exactly that you're—"

"So no, I can't."

Jim hesitates for a heartbeat.

"Didn't you say that dating is a waste of time? Loss of productivity, or whatever?"

The smile is still lingering, and though it's absolutely irrational, it makes Jim feel…alone. All the more excluded from her life, which he apparently knows so little about. "Maybe I changed my mind."

Jim snorts. "I didn't know you could do that." He regrets it immediately.

She sighs. "Kirk, I can't help you, sorry. There are other people you can ask. Gaila would love to go, I'm sure. Or Janice. Or Gary, though he's super busy with thesis lately so maybe it's better if you don't go there. Christine is back in town, so she's a good option, too."

Right, he tells himself. _Right._

There's lots of other people.

Tons.

"See, this is why I come to you." He pastes a grin on his face, which of course is completely pointless, since she's not really looking at him. Or listening to him. He comm just buzzed, and she's flipping it open, eyes sliding left to right as she corners of her mouth shift upwards again."'Cause you're good at helping me figure out stuff."

She's still smiling faintly when he stands to leave, and doesn't notice him throwing away the wrap, or pushing further on the table a PADD that's about to fall down, or walking out of the study room trying to trick himself into thinking that in the end he doesn't _really_ care.


	2. Chapter 2

Nyota. Her name is Nyota.

He likes that, a lot, too.

...

"There are no landmarks in space," Pike tells him while the Enterprise is still deep in refit, and Jim nods without really understanding. Then again, there isn't much he really understands about what has been happening in the past few months. He's largely been approaching the issue by trying to look as unfazed as possible.

Lots of winging it, in this captain business.

"So find someone who's willing to be one. Someone to talk to." He takes a sip of his beer, and Jim does the same, wondering what number they're at. Fourth? Maybe fifth. No, fourth. "Deep space is lonely, son. And not in the cool, manly way you're imagining right now."

...

It doesn't take Jim long to realize that out of everything and everyone—Spock and his unremitting questions about the whats and the wheres and the whys of Jim's every single decision; Bones with his baleful glares; Pike and the way he clapped his hand on Jim's shoulder before their maiden voyage, oozing pride as if Jim had never sat in front of him with napkins hanging out of his nose—she's the only one who actually realizes that he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

There's a huge difference between making split-second decisions when the alternative is total annihilation of one's home planet and establishing a solid leadership in the boredom of a starship at warp for weeks in a row, and though Jim doesn't particularly like to dwell on it, the complexity of every procedure, the regulations and codes he's supposed to not only know but also _follow_ , and the sheer amount of names and ranks he has to memorize are quietly terrifying.

He has wanted this, the ship, the kickass crew, and the orders of deep space exploration, for a long time. Probably since before he was able to put it into words. He just needs to remember _why_. And to figure out what to do with it.

In the meantime, the whole thing scares the shit out of him, something he's definitely not used to, and he finds himself overcompensating, flirting with the pretty blond yeoman who looks about nineteen— _holy shit, he has his own yeoman. Holy shit. Holy shit_ —, ordering impromptu joyrides, and recording cheeky, inappropriate captain logs that someone at HQ must be listening to and that probably make him sound reckless, and badass, and pretty much the opposite of freaking out. All while sweat pools in his lower back when he sits on that stupid, less-than-comfortable chair, as he wonders whether the admiralty was desperate or high when they asked if please, please, he'd be captain of the _fucking flagship_.

Somehow, Uhura knows.

All of it.

Jim's not used to it. To her turning from her console ever so slightly in the middle of her shift with no apparent reason, looking at him like that, curious, speculative, like he's interesting in his own right, not just a nuisance to swat away while she's trying to write a paper on past participles, an obstacle to sidestep on her way to a Xenolinguistics lab social. To her listening attentively to what he says during mission briefings, eyes dark and grave, making him want to straighten his uniform shirt and almost lose his place in the sentence. For years, to get her attention Jim's done shit he's not particularly proud of. Now that he has it, he's not quite sure what to make of it.

What _she_ makes of _him_.

"Get it together," she tells him the first time they happen to be alone. Her tone is firm and level, yet not unkind.

"Excuse me, lieutenant?" he asks, thinking he probably misheard, since he was busy calculating the chances of catastrophic core failure occurring within the first ten days of his captaincy.

She is standing next to him in the turbolift, facing forward, looking fresh and put-together and self-assured and still remarkably like the student she isn't anymore—none of them is, which is not exactly... fair—, her PADD primly tucked between her arm and her side.

"It's a milk run. They know better than assigning us a crucial mission as our first, and probably they don't even trust us anyway. Yet. Relax. The next few orders are just designed to help you—help _us,_ get our bearings."

He look at her, gingerly. "Why would I—I'm not… _worried._ "

She purses her lips a little, and—is that a _smile_ that she's trying to conceal?

"Okay, maybe a little…concerned, but I'm—fine—"

"And you might want to stop biting your cuticles."

"My… what?"

"The skin around your nails. It can easily get infected, which of course can be remedied with anti-inflammatory hypos, but…" She must notice his wince, because she adds. "Yep, I though so." And then, almost as an afterthought. "Sir."

She's out of the turbolift, gone long before he can decide if he wants to thank her or write her up for insubordination.

...

He likes Spock, too. From the very beginning. No matter that he wanted Jim booted out of the Academy, and no matter what Jim might have told Bones on the podium of shame, and to whomever else would listen on the way to space dock—Jim was delirious, of course, so he doesn't quite remember nor it really counts.

It's a little odd, after months of wishful thinking, spent picturing this mysterious person Uhura has actually agreed to _date_ and coming up completely empty, finding himself respecting Spock nearly as much as he respects her. It's precisely that sort of ironic plot twist that he's come to expect from his life, not unlike the shipyard being moved to the stupid state where his family farm has been for the past six generations, or taking attitudinal career tests in his senior year of high school and being unequivocally recommended for a career in Starfleet.

So he's mostly amused, and he doesn't really mind it, having to look at them on the bridge while they work hard simultaneously at making his ship the best in the 'Fleet _and_ at pretending that they are not disgustingly in love with each other.

Or maybe he minds a bit, but the Enterprise is shiny and cool, space is vast and unexplored, pretty people on starbases love unattached, daring starship captains, and the admiralty is breathing down his neck and waiting for him to screw up. In the end, he's too young and too Jim Kirk to spend his best years pining after someone who…

Yeah.

Then Spock and Uhura are not in love anymore, and that's when it really begins.

...

"Well. The wind is awful and the planet smells like steamed cabbage. But I guess the trees are nice, and at least these folks are not into communal consumption of their own feces. Unlike the ones who tried to kills us a couple of weeks ago."

The best part of having Bones join first contact missions is that his presence is absolutely unnecessary. There are other doctors on board, and several EMTs, not to mention that Scotty's always ready to beam up every single member of the away mission if—when—the shit inevitably hits the fan. The tools Bones carries are minimal, anyway, and when the situation precipitates the injured crew member—okay, fine, the _redshirt_ , Jim's looking into that—always ends up having to be treated on board. So yeah, there's no _real_ reason for Bones to be included in the landing party.

Except that it amuses Jim. To no end.

Low key harassment is probably why people love being captain so much, he's starting to think.

"True." he claps his hand on Bones's shoulder. " _And_ they're way easier on the eyes."

"Jim, I beg you. Don't get any idiotic ideas. For all we know their genitals come with a Venus flytrap mechanism."

Jim winces at the image. "That wouldn't be a problem, since they're clearly all about the hands, anywa—Hey!"

Bones elbows him in the ribs and walks away, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Jim just stands there, glaring at him, a little because his ribs hurt like a son of a bitch, but mainly because it's absolutely unfair.

Since it's true.

It's a weird language system the locals have, made of strings of sounds and tones and hands gestures that change the meaning of seemingly identical words, and it's always fun to know that a slight relative misplacement of one's thumb could change the Federation's "We come in peace" into "Will you pass the garlic salt?" Or, of course, "We want genocide." Also, whenever a conversation is going on, touching is involved. A lot of touching.

 _A lot_.

Uhura figured out the whole deal in less than two minutes, while Jim was still trying to make sense of the way the chieftain was clutching his wrist and repeatedly touched the tip of his nose. The universal translator wasn't much help, of course. Since, let's be honest, it rarely fucking is.

"We have been offered hospitality. Some kind of meal, I think."

Jim turns. Uhura is standing at his side, arms lifted in a attempt to prevent the wind from pushing all that hair in her eyes. It's not working very well.

"Should we stay?"

She cocks her head. "Well. As far as I can tell they don't eat stools."

He smiles. "You guys were scarred for life by that mission, weren't you?"

"I think the question here is why were _you_ not." She gives him a side look. "Captain."

"Yeah, well. Thanks, lieutenant. And great job with this. Probably our best first contact mission, so far." To be fair, the bar is not that high, what with the poop eating and that other planet where they were put on trial for consuming oxygen without asking for permission. At least everyone is alive. And no one is bleeding. Chekov is charming a bunch of teenagers, Sulu is pointing to the Enterprise and gesticulating a lot, and Spock is deep in conversation with three natives about something that has got to be just _fascinating_.

There's lots of… touching, involved. Some hand-holding.

Jim frowns.

"I guess I'd have expected he'd freak about all the… you know. Hand thing. And ask for a beam back ten seconds in." Uhura follows Jim's gaze until her eyes reach Spock.

"Nah. He's a real trooper." Her expression is absolutely neutral.

"Isn't that how Vulcans kiss, though? With their hands? Or wait, were those Betazoids?"

She smiles a little. "Shouldn't you know, since you tested out of Intro to Xenobiology?"

"Of course, I know." A particularly vicious gust of wind hits him, and Jim lifts his hand to protect his eyes. "But remind me?"

She sighs, but it's more for scene than out of any real irritation, and Jim can easily tell by now. "It's Vulcans. And they kiss like this." Anyone else would probably show Jim by touching their fingers to his. Uhura, of course, chooses not to, and she mimics the gesture with her own left and right middle and index fingers. Sliding them against each other. Jim observes her carefully and then—when his brain is responsive again—he takes his eyes off her fingers.

Trying not to wonder whether whether she finds the idea of touching his hand distasteful.

It doesn't matter. The point is absolutely moot, anyway. "How are you doing? About…"

She turns to the opposite side, to look at the lakes and the fields and dark red trees that look a lot like willows, and Jim's no comm officer, but there's no doubt that her shoulders are suddenly tenser, and her lips thinner, and he wonders, not for the first time, if there really is such a thing as an amicable break up.

"I'm fine."

He should leave it at that.

"I know it's probably… not easy. With the whole…"

She hesitates, but the line of her back softens.

"They seem happy." She's looking at Spock, still talking with one of the natives while Bones does him best impression of pacing nonchalantly not three meters away from them. It's a pretty abysmal impression. "Not that they'd ever admit it."

"Yeah. Bones' trying to play it cool, but believe me, it's pretty gross how much into Spock he is."

She's actually smiling now, wide and amused, which is not something she's been doing that much of, lately. It makes him want to smile, too. "The other day over lunch Spock told me with a straight face that they are just 'hooking up', anyway."

Jim feels his jaw go slack. "Did he actually use the words—?"

"Yep."

"Oh, god."

She is laughing silently. "I know."

"Who'd he pick it up from?"

Uhura shrugs. "McCoy himself? I think they might spend about a third of their time together lying to each other about what they're doing in the other two thirds."

"Sounds about right." A pretty native has inched closer to Spock and is running a hand through his hair. Bones' scowl deepens as he tracks each movement. "I'm glad you're okay."

Uhura is silent for several moments, long enough that he's a little surprised when she finally speaks. "It wasn't… working. For us. For me. It's just…" Jim looks at her, and she's biting into her lower lip. "I had gotten used to think about my future with…" She swallows, visibly. "And now it's not going to pan out, so I'm currently…" A lock of hair is stuck across her face, kept there by the breeze. She shrugs and takes a deep breath, lifting a hand to push it back. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I bet you don't exactly have a ten year plan, right?"

By now, he knows better than to take offense. Or to try to imply that the reason she's telling him all of this is that he asked, because he cares, because they are friends. He's not one hundred percent sure it's true, anyway.

But at least he can give her something familiar, when everything else around her is shifting and shaking.

"Hey. If you think that when the Admiralty interviews you for a captaincy they don't ask you where you see yourself in ten years, think again."

She glances up at him. "Where did you tell them you saw yourself?"

"In their seats. Doing their jobs. Better, though."

At least, he tells himself, he can make her laugh.

...

"There are days in which it doesn't seem worth it. Like there's better stuff we all could be doing."

There are days in which they find lots of cool shit, and science the crap out of L-class planets, and are able to make people who really, really want to blow up each other's worlds consider not doing it. At least, not quite yet.

And then, then there are days in which the number of people beaming back up the ship is a little too small, days of terrible arithmetics and an endless replays and deconstructions of every single order given, days that end in nights like this, sitting in a dark corner of the ship and contemplating getting wasted until someone to talk to magically appears.

Sometimes it's Spock. Sometimes it's Bones.

Mainly, it's her. She and Jim don't hang out, or spend their free time together, or anything as mundane as that. And yet, on these days, she's the one who finds him most often. Talks him into not quitting. Without conceit, Jim's pretty sure he's starting to get the hang of this captaining thing, but the shitty days don't become any fewer, which makes him think that maybe this is a just a shitty job.

"Better?"

"Yep. Better."

"Better for whom?"

He nods, because it's a good question. "I don't know."

"What else would you be doing, anyway?" Of course he's not looking at her, of course they're both looking at the stars, but she sounds genuinely curious, not like she's just asking leading questions to prove the idiocy of his statements in that stupid condescending, Socratic way that always makes him want to punch someone.

"I don't know. I'm sure I'm pretty hirable by now. Leadership experience. Good computer skills. Think of all that data entry I could supervise." He sinks a little more in his seat, sprawling comfortably. Her posture remains effortlessly elegant as she gives him a side glance. "I mean, there must be something that wouldn't require me to send people into probable death on a daily basis, out there."

He tries not to be overly dramatic about this. People who enlist, they know the score, they all do. It's not on Jim. And yet, it has to be on _someone_.

"If not you, someone else would be sending them into probable death. Maybe with much less hesitation or reasonable cause. Don't you want to be sure that you're here to do it right?"

She's good, at this. Jim's not sure why he's surprised. "Do you ever have have any doubts? About this."

A pause. "There are… parts of it that I don't enjoy. But no. Not really. This is what I've always wanted."

"To be a comm officer?"

"For now."

"For now?"

"Well, yeah. Not forever."

He feels a flicker of anxiety. "So, what's next?"

She shifts on her seat. "It depends. There are several possibilities."

He nods, and phrases the following question carefully.

"What's the endpoint, then?"

She hesitates a little, but not because she isn't sure of the answer. The impression Jim gets is that she's debating whether to share it with him. "Starbase commander," she tells him after too many seconds, and it gives him pause.

"Really? You want to be a starbase commander?"

She stiffens a little—maybe, he's not positive. There's no mistaking the way her fingers press into the cushion of her seat.

"You know, _sir_ , wearing a mustard yellow shirt doesn't necessarily make someone better suited to leadership than everyone else—"

"Of course. That's not what I meant at all, I just though that—"

"Especially to leadership of fields and divisions in which they have little or no training—"

"Hey, no!" He lifts his palm in front of his chest, defensively. "That's not what I meant at all, and I know that half of us are jackasses. I just thought you—a comm officer—would want to… I don't know. See lots of first contacts, I guess."

"Oh." He shoulders deflate a little. She actually sounds a little… sheepish, which… yeah. That might be a first. "Well, I guess… first contacts are fun, but they don't last long. You figure out the basics of one of the planet's languages, tell the natives about the Federation, make sure they'll want to sign some kind of treaty or agreement, and then you're off to another mission. But starbases… that's where you really have people from all over the galaxy living together. For real, not ninety percent humans, like in most Federation spaces. And, most starbases have ridiculous crime rates because they are appallingly mismanaged." Jim knows all of this, of course. Everybody knows. But she's animated now, eyes bright, hands that were clenched at her side until a few moments before moving about with energy, and he doesn't want to interrupt her, so he just nods. "Because here you have these dumb former command track cadets—no offense—who had to take xenoculture _twenty times_ before barely scraping a C minus, in charge of thousands of people whom they have no idea how to handle because they just don't understand their backgrounds and needs and motivations, with the result that at any given time about half of the starbase is completely miserable, which is absolutely _unacceptable_ —"

She stops abruptly, a dusting of red on her cheeks, and thank fucking god she's now looking in the opposite direction, because Jim has no clue where it's coming from but it's here, in the tip of his fingers, the desire to reach forward, and cradle her cheeks, and press his lips against hers, and lick into her mouth, and maybe press her against the back of this couch, and—

He shakes it off immediately, feeling a little disgusted by himself. He never cared much for property, but inappropriate doesn't even begin to cover this. He's her commanding officer, now.

He has _power_ , over her.

It's just… She knows so much. About _stuff_. About herself. She knows exactly what she's doing. Where she is going. She's brimming with it, and it's so… sexy.

So. Fucking. Hot.

 _Shit_.

"Sorry. I get really carried away when talking about…" she waves her hand dismissively, and there are about twenty things he could say that would make sense, but of course he picks the most idiotic.

"Is that why you and Spock…?" Talk about inappropriate. He has so little right to ask this, it's not even funny.

"What? No. We—I think I just wasn't ready to…I had underestimated what he… and I overestimated what we could—" She breaks and looks away, and when she talks again he voice is flat. Uncompromising. "Spock was a mistake. I should not be in a relationship right now, not I have no desire to be. Relationships get in the way."

 _Okay_.

"That seems arbitrary," he says, noncommittally.

She laughs. "Are you going to advocate in favor of long-term relationships? _You_?"

"Hey," he says mildly. "I just haven't found the right person. I don't hate the _concept_ of being in a relationship."

She shrugs. "I'm not saying that relationships are bad. Or that letting them get in the way is necessarily bad. Just that I have to intention to."

He really should leave this alone. "Why?"

"Just…I have a plan. I know where I want to be. And getting there, with someone else in tow, is twice as hard."

It's been a shitty day. He really doesn't need to be doing this to himself, on top of everything. Shutting up is always an option, as Bones reminds him all the time.

"What if you fall in love?"

"I won't."

"How do you know that? What if you—"

"I won't."

He nods. The he looks at the stars for a moment, and he nods again.

This whole thing has nothing to do with him, anyway.

"I'm going to bed." He stands. "See you tomorrow on bridge." He flicks her ponytail as he passes behind her, just because it seems like what she'd expect him to do.

She rolls her eyes. "Good night, captain."

...

"Is this even legal?"

He laughs at the suspicion in her tone, but doesn't stop typing on the monitor. "Oh, no. No way."

"Then we shouldn't…"

"But it's fine. They'll never catch us."

" _Captain_. You're logged in with your credentials, of course they will—"

"Everything's encrypted. Okay, what do you want to know?"

"But Starfleet security—"

"It would be a good idea to get some, I keep telling them." She looks uncomfortable for a few moments, fingers twirling around the end of her ponytail. The thing is, she really needs access to this report. He knows she's not about to tell him to stop.

"How do you even know how to do this, anyway?"

He shrugs. "It's pretty intuitive."

"Hacking the Federation database is _intuitive_."

"Computer stuff. You know I'm good at it. Come on, have you forgotten the whole Kobayashi-Maru thing? An unfair witch hunt, of course. But still." He winks at her, and she narrows her eyes in response.

"Yeah, but that was just an internal test—"

He snorts. "Bypassing Spock's firewalls was about one hundred times more work than hacking any Starfleet personnel file containing crucial and sensitive information would be." He shakes his head. "They're idiots. So, when is the report you're looking for dated?"

"2061.153 through 155. I think."

"Mmm." He types for a few moments. "Any of these? I can narrow it down. If you give me the sender's ID."

"It should be… that one. Access that."

"This one?"

"No, not—yep, this one. And now… great. Can you upload to my server?"

"Already there." He shoots her a smile and pushes his back chair, lifting his arms behind his head. "This was fun."

She shakes her head. "I bet."

"Anything else you want me to find out for you, lieutenant? The type of underwear Komak wears? Sulu's secret cupcake recipe? Chekov's porn preferences?"

She scrunches her nose. "Eew. You think…?"

He immediately leans forward. "Only one way to find out."

"No, no, please—" She puts a hand of his biceps to stop him, and he immediately drops his hands. "You're just…"

"Fantastic?"

"Mmmm."

"Incredible?"

"Not quite."

"Extraordinary?"

"Extraordinarily terrible."

"Aw. I'll take it."

She shakes her head. Her hand is still on his arm. He tries not to think about. He touches people, all the times, too, without it meaning anything.

"Listen, Kirk." She looks him in the eye. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He smiles and winks at her. "My highly advanced and mostly law-breaking computer skills are always at your service. And whatever other skill you might need— _ouch_." She jams the sharp corner of her PADD into his ribs, though not a aggressively as she once would have. Jim'll count it as progress. "I meant it in the most innocent way."

"Right. Anyway, I meant… You're really good at this stuff, so I guess…Thank you for not hacking into my file. To find out my grades. Or my name. Back when we were at the Academy, I mean." She frowns. "Assuming that you actually didn't."

It's not as if he had considered it. Well, to he honest with himself, he hadn't _not_ considered it. But even at the time, even among all the things he'd done just because that was exactly what she expected of him, this seemed like the one he should just… _not_ do. "Hey. Consent, and stuff like that. Lieutenant."

"Wow. Those sensitivity trainings they made you take in your first year really worked miracles. _Captain_."

"What can I say? I was a fantastic student."

She's looking up at him, a faint smile on her lips, eyes reluctantly amused—her hand, her hand is still where it was ten, twenty seconds ago, and this touching thing they're apparently doing now that they're friends is a little distracting, somewhat taxing on his self-control—and Jim finds it hard to look anywhere else. He talked last, so it's her turn to say something, but she says nothing and just keeps studying him, and if it were anyone else, he'd imagine that they're having a _moment_.

It's _her_ , though, so he forces himself to think back to the sensitivity trainings, to _why are you like this, Kirk?_ , to the firmness in the voice when she said that she would not fall in love. Period.

She pats his shoulder when she stands to leave, and Jim reflects that if this weird, reluctant, comfortable friendship is all he can get her from her, he has very little to complain about.

...

His tray has barely made contact with the table when he realizes that he forgot the goddamn ketchup.

Of course, neither Uhura nor Sulu would ever even entertain the thought of being caught in the mess eating something at mundane as fries—and even if they did they would be way too precious for ketchup, so no chance of finding it on their trays, of course. Which means having to walk back all the way to replicators, and stand in line, and by the time he's back to the table Bones might be off shift and decide to make his way to the mess and confiscate his lunch or, even worse, turn it into a salad, which would make his trip to the replicator useless to begin with.

 _Choices_ , he thinks, plopping down in the chair in front of Uhura and Sulu, trying to decide if he really wants to go through that. It sounds excruciating.

"He looked hot." Sulu is saying, swallows a spoonful of his soup. "Well, not as hot as Ben, of course—"

"Of course." Uhura hides her smile in her sandwich.

 _Weird_ , Jim thinks. She always, _always_ has a salad for lunch. Except when she takes beta, which overlaps with dinner time. When she takes beta she just doesn't eat at all, because she hates having a meal right before bed for some reason Jim will never understand. But of course she didn't take beta, last night. Last night half of the crew beamed down to the planet for a few hours of shore leave, and Jim's pretty sure that she…

"Still, the same type, no? Tall and dark. Intense. Sexy. Dangerous, mysterious vibe."

"Did you just say Ben has a dangerous vibe?"

"Yep."

"Ben Sulu?"

"Do we know another Ben?"

She frowns in her sandwich. "The same Ben Sulu who won second place at the gluten-free bake-off with his raspberry cheesecake?"

"The other challengers were scared shitless of him."

"The same Ben Sulu who sent a pic of that mermaid-themed potty training chart he made for Demora?"

"Yep. He rules our household through fear."

"The very same Ben Sulu—"

"Who are you guys talking about?" Jim asks, reaching the conclusion that the ketchup is not _that_ crucial to his enjoyment of the meal.

Nyota turns to face him. "Ben Sulu? As the name suggests, he's the husband of your helmsman and, apparently, a vicious badass."

Sulu says something that sounds remarkably like "You bet your ass" through a mouthful of soup.

"Ha ha. No, I mean, who's the dude who looks like Ben. Or, doesn't."

"Oh. Nyota got lucky. Well," Sulu amends, tipping his head to the side. "Tall, dark, and dangerous got lucky."

 _What are they talking about?_ "What?"

"On shore leave. Yesterday." Sulu tells him, looking at Jim as if he were a little dense, as if the shore leave and tall, dark—

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Oh.

He doesn't looks at her. He really doesn't want to look at her, because she…"Oh."

His stomach is twisting a little. Not sure with what, since his fries are burger are untouched.

"You okay, captain? You look a little pale. Maybe you shouldn't have that for lunch. It's really unhealthy and hard to digest." Sulu looks with concern at Jim fries and then steals one.

"The captain here's from Iowa. He's a mean, lean deep-fried Twinkies eating machine." Nyota's voice is teasing. She actually touches him, her hand a friendly weight on his shoulder. And not for the first—or the second, or the tenth time— Jim tells himself that she's been doing it more and more, lately. This weird friendship that they've been striking up, based off him bitching and her telling him to get a grip, and then laughing back at when they were at the Academy and they had the audacity of thinking they were under pressure _then_. It's not that he thought—but maybe—but then, again, it means nothing. Because she's also been touching—

"Didn't you have your 'no relationships' rule?"

She laughs. She actually laughs. "I do. Believe me, I'm never going to see this guy again."

"Aww." Sulu cocks his head. When did these two become best friends? "You're not gonna marry him?"

"Hikaru—"

"You're not gonna join the Dangerous Spouse Club? Bummer."

She is grinning. Where does all this mutual teasing come from? Uhura would skin Jim alive for a tenth of this. "No. And neither are you."

"I am the founder. And the treasurer. And the—Hey, Doctor McCoy. Haven't seen you in while."

Jim barely notices when his lunch disappears.

...

In an attempt to prepare their class for the worst conceivable scenarios—discounting, of course, the possibility of a dangerous madman traveling back in time with future technology, hellbent on pulverizing a couple of Federation planets in the Solar and Eridani systems—during the Academy years Starfleet sent them on survival training trips pretty much every other week. Mostly on national and state parks, but a couple of times in Antartica, and once they were all shipped to an L-class planetoid whose name Jim has forgotten, where the cold froze his eyelashes together so quickly that he almost fell into a ravine every time he so much as blinked.

Not to mention that during Jim's three years in San Francisco his dorm room was always across the door from Nyota's, and that Bones got—surprisingly—laid frequently enough that Jim had made the spot between Nyota and Gaila's bed his official alternative go-to place to spend the night.

It's slightly surreal, then, that now, years after the beginning of the five year mission, in the MedBay of the Enterprise, should be the first time he sees Nyota without any makeup on.

Except that yes, if Jim thinks back to it, Nyota was often already gone, no matter how early he'd wake up, and half the times she was the one shaking him awake when he overslept, voice brisk as she reminded him of a class he should not be late for, or of the necessity of moving forward to avoid assideration.

It almost makes sense, then, that this, eyes blinking and bleary, expression confused, is the most vulnerable he's ever seen her.

Something tightens a little behind his sternum, and he has to clear his throat before speaking. "How're you doing, lieutenant?"

She closes he eyes and then opens them again, turning to look at him. "I'm…okay."

Her voice is hoarse, and Jim reaches for the cup of water on the bedside table, surrounded by the hypos Bones put there before Spock came to forcibly remove him from MedBay, saying something about how if McCoy is so fond of thirty hour shifts, maybe he should consider indentured servitude with the Klingon Empire as a more satisfying career option.

"Now," he tut-tuts after she takes a sip and licks her lips, "I'm pretty sure 'okay' has variable definitions."

She chuckles, and then the laugh turns into a cough, and then labored breathing. "Don't make me laugh. I think my ribs are cracked."

He runs his hand through a lone strand of hair on her forehead, pushing it back from her eyes. He wonders if he's ever touched her like this before, but no, he doesn't believe he did. Thought about it. Imagined it, for sure.

"Mmmm. They were. Bones fixed the various bleeding wounds and your arm, but the ribs are still knitting back together. Give it a couple of hours before you go for your daily run."

She rolls her eyes. "Fine," she says, smiling around the word. He tries not stare at her mouth.

Really. She looks five years younger without make-up. Definitely too young to be in this biobed.

"You remember what happened?"

She nods.

"That was a mighty shove you got. You were out twenty-three hours. I have been informed that it is very fortunate that you didn't crack your skull, and that you damn better count your blessings. And then Spock talked for a long time about probabilities, but I spaced out."

 _It's okay. She's fine. She's here._

 _Get a grip, Jim._

"I space out, too. Around the fourth decimal point."

He smiles, and it's the first smile he's not faking in about a day. "I'm gonna go, okay? Find the nurse on duty and tell him you woke up, and all that." He looks away before continuing. "Unless you'll let me to stay for a bit? Tell you all the gossip you missed?"

"Gossip? What can I have missed one day?" She's blinking sleepily, and if he absolutely cannot help the staggering relief he feels, he still has zero business noticing how adorable his severely injured comm officer looks.

None at all.

"Hey. It's the Enterprise. And we have people like Chekov on board."

She angles her head towards him, settling on the pillow. "What'd he do?"

She's asleep before he's done telling her, even breathing and one hand tucked beneath her cheek.

He stays for a while.

...

Neither of them says anything when they rematerialize, or while they walk off transporter pad, Jim stomping down the steps and Uhura practically darting out of the room. Jim spares a second to bark an order the ensign manning the controls— _Stay in position and wait for Mister Spock and Mister Sulu_ —but ignores the cluster of junior science officers and red shirts who beamed back up a couple of minutes before he and Uhura did.

They must have noticed what happened on the planet, because they know better than try to catch his gaze.

There is an officer changing room on the same corridor, about two doors down—most of them left their uniforms there not three hours ago, after putting on their wetsuits and laughing over Sulu's swim meets anecdotes—and Jim follows Uhura inside, stepping in just far enough that the doors' sensors can disengage and give them some privacy.

"Uhura," he tells her, trying to keep his tone even. She doesn't turn to look at him, continuing to peel the wetsuit away from her torso. He knows better that to think she didn't hear him.

He gives her a few seconds, trying to let his anger boil down, because for all the little barbs and the sighs and the mocking _Yes, captain_ s, she has never, _ever_ even skirted insubordination. He takes one, two deep breaths as he looks at her, the suit much, much easier to pull off than to put on, sliding down her hips and legs, until she's only wearing a black regulation two-piece that is only slightly more feminine than the shorts he has on under his own wetsuit. Any other moment Jim would notice.

 _Notice_.

As angry as he is, it barely registers.

She almost—

Because he—

He told her to… But she didn't, and she almost—

It flares up again.

"Lieutenant," he says more sharply as she is reaching for her uniform. Apparently, she decides that she can't exactly pretend she didn't hear _that_.

She spins around, kicking her suit a couple of steps away in the process. "Yes, captain?"

He rakes his head for the best way to phrase it, and simply doesn't find any. "What the fuck was that?"

She stares at him cooly. "Excuse me?"

"What just happened? And believe me, you don't want to pretend you don't know what I'm referring to."

She swallows and looks at him defiantly. "You orders were—"

"To get out of the red zone. Immediately."

Her nostrils flare. "Yeah, well, _captain_. That would have been a terrible idea." Her fists are clenched. "With all due _respect._ "

 _What the fuck._

"Do you realize—" He starts, and the he breaks off, trying to calm down a little, trying to look anywhere but at her, to busy his hands and his mind with taking off the stupid suit, pushing the synthetic material down his torso, his legs, and off his feet. He takes two more deep breaths. "Do you realize how close you came to—"

"Do _you_ realize that I just saved your life? And all I've gotten for it was being reprimanded in front of the crew—"

"No, you did _not_." He pushes out between gritted teeth. "I had everything under control and your intervention only made the situation more volatile—"

"If I hadn't told you about the weapons you'd never have realized that the possibility of an attack from the side—"

"If you hadn't told me about the weapons I would have been about to get away without having to take care of you!"

"Oh, _my mistake_. Was that before of after being captured or murdered?"

"Oh please, you have absolutely no idea what—"

"You are being unreasonable—"

"—the situation was before—"

"—and stubborn while it obvious that—"

"Hey."

They both turn immediately towards the doors.

Bones is standing there, tricorder in hand, an uncharacteristically cautious look in his eyes, and it suddenly hits Jim that they have been shouting at each other. Or close enough. And, that they are standing very close. There are maybe three inches between them. Maybe.

Neither of them steps back.

"Are you okay?" Bones' gaze shifts between them. "Anything broken or bleeding I should know about?" he asks, with little of his usual testiness.

"No," Jim says, and he can see Nyota shake her head in the corner of his field of view. They are both very nearly naked, wearing swimsuits that hide very little. It should be self-evident, that they're as okay as one can be after a mission that involved extreme temperatures and a whole lot of underwater crap.

"Where's Spock?"

"He should be beaming up right now. Bones, can you leave us?"

McCoy looks between the two of them once more, this time with a frown. "I'm not sure I should, actually—"

"Doctor McCoy. Out." It annoys the fuck out of Jim, that he has to use his captain's voice to make people who should know better than do what he's telling them to do. Even then, Bones hesitates for a second, purses his lips into a thin line, and then the doors swish closed in front of the blue of his uniform.

The silence swallows the room.

"Lieutenant," he says, ready to continue, to start where they left off, to make he understand that she can't—she could have— _she fucking can't_ —

He finds immediately that his rage has drained, and instead he's... Bone-tired, that's what he is. He runs a hand through his hair. A feeling he wouldn't have been able to name only a few years ago. This captain gig is _not_ fun.

When he speaks, his voice is low. "What you did on the planet was insubordination. You put yourself at risk for no reason. If it happens once more, it will end up on your evaluation."

"I…" She shakes her head, her chest lifting as she breathes in. The fire in her eyes mutes a little. "I'm sorry. Captain. I am. But… if I could go back, I'm not sure that I wouldn't do the same. The risk to _your_ life was considerable." They are still standing very— _very_ —close. He pupils are large, almost indistinguishable from the irises.

 _Is this too close?_ _Should he be stepping back?_

"I need you to trust me. My assessment of the situation." He exhales. "I can't do this if you don't trust me."

"I trust you."

"Do you?"

"Well." She's looking up at him, almost smiling now, and she's still so damn close. "Not with your own safety, no. Sorry."

And, it's like that.

One moment he's there, wondering if he can afford to bring her on away missions in the future, wondering if he can afford not to, wondering if he should write her up even though it's her first offense, wondering how little she thinks of him, wondering if this is inappropriate, wondering—

Next he's still there, but her lips are pressing agains his, soft and warm and salty like the water dawn on the planet and—

He didn't—

He doesn't think he's the one who—

He's pretty sure—but then again—and she—and he—

It lasts seconds, less than that, and then she's back on her heels, and his mouth, the room, _everything_ feels cold again, and he can see her eyes again.

They are wide. And—

Incredulous. She looks incredulous. It's there, plain in her expression, that she cannot believe what she— _they_ —just did.

"I—Did I—?" His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears. "I have no idea—I'm so sorry—"

"No." She lifts her hand to silence him, but while her eyes are on him it's clear that she's looking somewhere else, somewhere inside herself. "Captain, I am so sorry. I don't know what—" She touches her fingers to her mouth and then gasps. "Oh, god."

She looks stricken for a second, two. The she exhales loudly and steps quickly around him, heading for the doors.

He grabs her by one elbow, first, and then by both, nudging her until she's facing him again.

"Wait—where are you—you're not even wearing clothes, and I—I didn't—I don't—"

He's not sure what happens then. All he knows is that they're kissing, again, except that this time.

This time.

This time it's a real kiss.

And it's…

It's…

Jim hasn't really let himself imagine this, not in a while, not in years. Except that he has, because it's not as if he has any control control over this, and still he could never quite bring himself to imagine that right as he is busy trying to keep his head from exploding in a million pieces, she— _she. She. She._ —would bite at his lower lip and lick on the inside with her tongue and then, holy shit, _holy shit_ it's her tongue in his mouth and her legs have hiked up on his hips and that's his hand holding her up, his hand exactly under her ass as she cradles his face with cool, slim fingers that immediately move to rake across his upper back because now she has started sucking on his earlobe, her breath fast and humid in his ears and his brain is fried and his cock is hard and—

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He can't.

He really can't. Because he is about ninety percent sure that she's the one who closed the distance between them, but according to the other ten percent, he's the one who just assaulted a direct subordinate he just was in a near death situation with, he's the one who has wrapped one arm around her waist while the other is sliding inside the back of her panties, he's the one who's suddenly backing her up against the wall and _shit_ , what a moment to remember that he weighs twice as much as she does and is probably just as much stronger and has considerably more power and—they're both half naked in an isolated room.

He really fucking can't.

 _They_ can't.

He swallows a moan as she runs her teeth over his throat, and tries to pull back.

"We can't." he rasps out, taking in the way her sternum rises and falls, and the puffs of air warming his mouth, and she's still enveloped around him, the underwear between is soaked through and they might as well not have anything on because he can feel _everything,_ and fuck, fuck fuck, _why_ can't they, again?

"We can't," she husks back, and she even _nods_ , but there must be something, some kind of disconnection between their brains and bodies because her eyes are glassy and her lashes flutter as she—

She moves her hips against his.

First gingerly, controlled, with intent, finding purchase using her hands on his shoulders, and then after one, two, three rolls into him—she is wet, he's pretty sure she's wet and his cock is so. hard.—she picks up speed and next thing he know he's not just helping, he's _running_ this show, grinding his erection against her, pushing into a spot that makes her gasp and deepen their kiss and bite hard at the base of his throat and blessed, blessed friction, this is not—He has _always_ —But this is not—

It's the way she whimpers, that does him in.

She lets out a sound that makes it very clear how much she wants this, wants _him_ , and for Jim it's all over. His hip stutter, his rhythm breaks, and the sound recedes a little bit, and he knows he's grunting like an animal but it's so good he's about to die, it's beyond anything he's ever—

 _Anything_.

When he's back from it, after what feels like three hour but is probably less than a minute, his muscles are still twitching. She gently pushes him away. "Move," she whispers urgently, and Jim feels like a total dipshit, because he lost it completely but he's pretty sure that she didn't even— "There are voices in the corridor and—"

They break apart as the science team comes in, Nyota running a hand down her torso in what looks like part attempt to straighten her swimsuit, part nervous gesture, like she's trying to make sure that her body is still there, that she still exists, still herself. As the room fills with chatter, she turns to the shelf where her uniform is. Her voice croaks a little when she addresses an ensign, and she has to clear her throat, re-start and find her words all over again.

"Is Commander Spock back?"

"Yes, sir. Doctor McCoy is, um, examining him."

"Is he injured?"

"Not that I could tell. No." The ensign flushes a little. "But you know Doctor McCoy."

Uhura nods with a small, forced, smile, and finishes putting her uniform on, her gestures graceful and quick.

Her hands, Jim thinks, might be shaking a little.

Jim…

Jim can't bring himself to move.

He just—

They just—

He just came like a freight train and she, well, he's pretty sure she _didn't_ , and she was—

"Are you okay, captain?"

Jim startles when Marquez steps next to him.

He is okay. Maybe his knees are giving out and his heart is pounding in his temples and he has no idea what the fuck is going on. But.

He's okay.

If okay means that for the past minute he's been standing in the middle of the room in his underwear, staring at Nyota getting a grip of herself, getting dressed, working her way past what they just—

 _Shit_.

"I'm fine, ensign. Just a little, um…dizzy."

Sluggish, disoriented, he finds his pants and shirt and puts them on, then takes them off when he realizes that they're inside out, stumbling at least three times and bumping into the emergency console in the process. Marquez asks him if he needs help, and Jim politely refuses, wondering if his lack of coordination is a temporary effect of… of the _thing_ that just… _happened_ , of if his ability to function is gone forever, blown away by…

Fuck.

By the time he straightens and looks around for Uhura, she's not in the changing room anymore.

...

He completely forgets about the existence of the chime and knocks on her doors instead, because apparently not even a genius IQ is enough to navigate basic social situations after what happened a few hours earlier.

She doesn't seem surprised to see him, but then again, she doesn't seem anything.

At all.

She just stands there and looks at him, hair curling on her temples from what is probably a recent shower, her arms tight around her waist.

"Can we talk?"

Her face blanks even more, and for a moment he's sure she'll say no, just one in a line of many crisps _no_ s that she has never hesitated directing at him. Instead she steps back, lips pressed thin, and a few seconds later the doors close silently behind him and he's in her cabin.

It's the first time, since the beginning of the mission.

He doesn't step in very far, and the light can't be anything more than forty percent, but on the walls he can still make out several pictures. Some of Nyota with her family, whom Jim spent days doing his best to charm when they visited the Academy— _Nyota, your friend is delightful. He should come with you next time you visit Nairobi_ —some with Spock and with, if Jim's not wrong, Spock's mother. One with Scotty, Bones, and Sulu, doing stupid faces—except Bones, who's just frowning—on what appears to be Starbase 16.

None of Jim, of course.

"How do you feel about what…" He clears his throat, and fuck, this feels awkward. _He_ feels awkward. "…What, um. Happened?" She is facing him, but pointedly looking at a spot somewhere behind his shoulder. It's chilling. "Unless I hallucinated it?"

She closes her eyes, and instantly the whole thing becomes ten times more awkward. "You didn't. I—I honestly have no idea how…"

 _Yeah._

He nods. "Yeah. Yeah."

She takes a deep breath, and the line of shoulders swells for a moment before deflating. "Not my brightest moment. By a long shot."

He nods again, feeling stupid. "I—Listen. My concern is…Was it…" This is really not a question he'd ever thought he'd have to ask. His stomach churns, and he shifts his gaze to the floor between them. "I need to know if you felt… coerced. If any of it was non-consensual—"

"No! No, I—It was consensual. It was not…. A good idea, for sure. But it wasn't just… your idea."

He doesn't look up, his chin down on his chest. "Because I know I'm in a position of authority over you and—"

"That is not what happened at all."

"—If you perceived at any moment that—"

"Hey." She takes a step towards him, entering his field of view and effectively forcing him to look at her. Her voice is firm and little affronted. "Honestly. Are you even listening to me? If this had happened with Spock, or Chekov, or McCoy, would you be going on and on about my ability to consent after I told you it was fine?"

And suddenly it's not as awkward. Suddenly she's a little mad at him, and he's thankfully not a millisecond away from bursting his heart open and telling her all the things that he—

Yeah, this, this he can maybe navigate.

He smiles. "In this scenario, am I having sex in a conference room with only one of them or with all three of them at the same time? Because the idea has some potential and—

"Captain. I have _not_ consented to having this mental image inserted into my brain."

"Hey, you brought it up in the first place."

She covers her eyes with her hands. "I can't unsee it now."

He winks at her. "I can do better. For example, if Scotty were to be walking by the conference room—"

"No."

"—And if Keenser happened to be with him—"

"Oh, _god_."

"—And they were both carrying their _tools_ —"

"Stop!" She steps closer and goes on the tip of her toes, pressing her hand against his mouth. "Stop stop stop. I beg you."

He can't help himself. He licks her palm and she jumps back, saying _eew_ and _gross_ and looking about ten years younger than when he came in as she vigorously rubs her hand on her pajama pants.

She's smiling faintly.

"Listen. Uhura…" He frowns. "Hey, can I maybe call you Nyota at this point?"

"Nope," she says, and he must look pretty put out, because she immediately starts chuckling. "I was kidding. Yes. Of course."

"Okay. Well, that's…" He smiles. "I'm sorry about what... Especially because that you didn't even—" _Come_. She didn't come. It's not as if Jim's ever been embarrassed about sex, about doing it, or talking about it, or talking about doing it, which is why he's not sure why he can't finish this sentence.

Maybe it's that she's blushing. Visibly.

"It's okay. It wasn't that… bad. I guess."

"What a glowing endorsement." He looks at the wall to his right for a second. "For me it was…" _Incredible. Outstanding. Really, really, really phenomenal._ "…good, actually, which is why it hardly seems fair that—"

"It's okay. I'm not going to spread the rumor that James T. Kirk last about ten seconds in bed, if that's what you're worried about." A heartbeat. "Or maybe I will. Let's wait and see what happens."

"Just don't tell Spock. And Chekov and McCoy and Scotty and Keenser—"

"Captain," she says, but she's laughing, and he's laughing too, and then there is a comfortable silence falling between them, and he just cannot stop himself saying it.

It just comes out.

Of his mouth.

"Let me make it up to you." He tries not to stare at her lips as he says it, but he doesn't think it's working. Because her lips are pretty much all he can see.

"Make it—Oh." She clears her throat, but she doesn't look away from him. And her breath is a little bit quicker. Maybe. "There is no need."

"I know. I know but…I would appreciate the chance, though. If you wanted. Too."

Boy, would he.

Better him than some random asshole at a random starbase in Nowhere, Space.

"I don't think it's a good idea."

 _Okay. Say okay, and just leave, Jim. She doesn't owe you any explanation. She doesn't want to fuck you, period. Leave this alone._

"Can I ask you…Why? Is it the ranking thing—"

"No. No." She wets her lips, and for a moment he's sure she's going to say no and kick him out. "Well, a little, but it was the same with Spock, so…"

"Okay." He nods. "Okay. It's not that—but the thing is, we're both stuck on this ship, and we're both senior personnel, and neither of us really gets the chance to… I mean, maybe you miss having sex—I certainly do, and—"

She is suddenly very still. "I don't know if I want to know where this is going…"

"I guess what I mean is—why not me, then? Instead of a guy you don't even—Listen, I'm not—I can be…decent. At it." He swallows heavily. "Pretty good."

She eyes him with a little diffidence, and he can tell her that she hasn't really considered this. That the thought of this has never entered her mind before today, and she's mildly shocked that they're having this conversation, just as she was incredibly shocked to find herself kissing him a few hours ago.

"Kirk, the thing is. I don't know if… I don't want you to get any ideas about…" Her voice and her expression are cautions. "About us. About this."

 _About us_.

 _What us?_ He could ask. _Is there a possibility of an us?_

But he doesn't.

This—making split second decisions, acting and putting off the thinking, making the best of half an opportunity—this is what he's good for.

Twisting situations to his own advantages.

So he smiles at her reassuringly. "I won't. I'm not—It doesn't have to mean anything." It's not exactly a lie. It doesn't _have to_ mean anything. That to him it… yeah, that's another matter altogether. "Just… fun."

"Are we sure?"

"Positive."

For a minute there's speculation in the way she cocks her head, she looks at him appraisingly. And then something shifts in her expression, and she has made her decision. "Fun, you say?"

"Why do you look so dubious?"

"Well…"

"Hey. Hey, I'm good at it." Her eyebrow lifts. "Usually. This time—There were extenuating circumstances and—"

The eyebrow stays, skeptical. "If you say s—"

This time at least he can be one hundred percent sure. He's the one who leans forward, and takes her face in his hands, and runs his tongue on her lips before kissing her, tasting toothpaste and strawberry and does she use strawberry toothpaste, because it's cutest fucking thing he—

She moans.

Her hands twine in his hair and she sighs and it's different from a few hours earlier, because they have cleared it out, because they are both _here,_ in their heads, and it makes it just…good.

So good.

He's not quite sure how they end up by her bed. How he's suddenly shirtless is just as hazy, lost in the way she's staring at his chest and running her fingers on his ribcage, on his chest, and it's right there, in her eyes, in her touch, that she'd never even thought about him like this; that's she's faintly surprised by the fact that she is really, really pleased with what she sees, and Jim knows he's fit, he knows he looks good, he knows but it feels like it never mattered before now. It's the most erotic experience of his life, and they haven't even started.

"You—" She swallows and lightly grazes her nails around his nipples. He tries not to grunt in response. "You really do follow Starfleet's workout guidelines, don't you?"

There are probably thirty witty response he could give her, but she's touching his biceps like they should be some kind of galactic heritage site and all that he can do is tug at her pajama and croak, "Off."

He tries not to look at her too much, because—he wants it to last. He tries to make it slow, slow enough that he can be there, encode it, because he knows he will want to remember this later. He tries to hold off, and maybe be a gentlemen for once, but she doesn't let him, and pulls him on top of her, flush to her, inside her, licks the sweat trickling down his temple, and he can only give in, half laughing and half gasping.

He has never let himself picture this, and he has thought of nothing else for the past years.

Two thrusts in he has stops, because—

"Jim." She says, sounding impatient and frustrated, doing something with her—

He groans. "Shit. Sorry. Sorry," he exhales against her cheek. "I just—I can't—I don't want it to be over just yet."

 _Ever_.

He knows all the moves, and yet he can use none. His hands hold her hips a little too tight—bruises, there will be bruises—and his eyes search hers a little too fervently, and the rush of pleasure is a little too intense, almost making him lose it a little too quickly. He drives himself too deep, suckles a little too hard, but he must be doing something right, because she's wet and welcoming, and right before his mind snaps blank she sighs in his ear, something harmless like "Yes", or "Good," or "Please," and then her legs are tightening around his waist, and she's pulling at him, and he comes in a hot, blinding rush of mind-numbing pleasure that seems to never end.

He buries his grunt in her throat, and then, when he's afraid he might bite her, in her pillow.

 _Fuck_.

Just, _fuck_.

When can makes sense of his body and his surroundings again he's already on laying on his back, staring at the curve of her ass as she sits on the edge of the bed.

"Did you…?" He clears his throat.

She looks back at him, moving her hair over the opposite shoulder. " Would you like a performance evaluation?" She's smiling a little.

He and Nyota.

They just made love.

He can't wrap his head around it.

"I'm not sure. Would it be positive, negative, or somewhere in between?"

She stands, naked, glorious, and he's not even surprised that she's not self-conscious at all. "Don't worry. You _are_ pretty good, after all."

He has no idea what to answer to that. His mind is mostly blank. "You are beautiful," he tells her awkwardly, and he is not looking at her naked breasts, or at the v between her legs.

She rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling. "You know, compliments won't make me forget that time you lasted about five seconds."

"Now. It was least twenty five."

She walks to her fresher, stopping to check her comm on her way, typing a response to some kind of message she received while they...

Before she disappears in the bathroom, he hears, "Goodnight, Kirk." It's how he knows not to be there when she comes back.

He gives himself a few seconds to get controls of his limbs, and then starts looking for his underwear.


	3. Chapter 3

Jim finds them amusing, Bones' ceaseless complaints, all that grumbling about how _on_ _this fucking space tin can what's a guy gotta do to have some privacy? Stun everyone? Hypo them unconscious? Hide in the left nacelle?_

Initially, he and Spock had hoped to keep their _thing_ a relative secret. A little because even after breaking up Spock and Uhura had continued being best buddies and joined at the hip, with the result that for a long time no one really knew they weren't together anymore. A lot because Bones was overheard yelling insults to Spock until about three hours before they hooked up for the first time. Jim supposes he wanted to save face for as long as possible and hide that he was fucking a guy he wouldn't stoop to having breakfast with until the previous day.

Thing is, they are both really _bad_ at it. At sneaking kisses in the corridors without being caught by a random ensign heading to her quarters. At not staring at each other dreamily over their lunch trays, no matter that they often make a point of sitting on opposite sides of the mess hall. At keeping their hands to themselves before and after either of them is due for even ridiculously low-risk away missions. And the fighting as foreplay. _Jesus._

Hence the speed with which the news about them has spread on board of the Enterprise, and Bones' incessant irritation. Whether he fails to see the irony of bitching about people getting in his business while his arm is carelessly thrown across the back of Spock's chair—after being under the table, visibly on Spock's thigh, for approximately thirty minutes—, or whether he just chooses to ignore it, Jim doesn't know. The fact remains that everyone, _everyone_ knows that they're in love.

Grossly so.

"I want to build a hotel on Ventnor Avenue." Noyta looks at Jim expectantly, holding out a stack credits, and it takes him a few seconds to remember that at the beginning of the game he nagged everyone until they let him be the banker. And thus, he should be running the bank.

"Right. Here you go. Happy developing." He rummages around a bit before handing her the red piece of plastic, and as she reaches for it, their hands touch for a short moment.

Jim swallows against the sudden dryness of his throat, and looks around the table.

"You capitalist pig," Bones is telling her. He's already ended up on Ventnor Avenue twice since the beginning of the game. "Well. Piglet."

Everyone—except Spock—chuckles.

Nyota is grinning triumphantly.

Jim tries to look anywhere but at her.

Not that he needs to. No one would believe that three days ago she sat atop him, in his chair in his office, his hands tight on her waist as he completely forgot that being a second for coming one's brains off is no excuse to leave bruises. And most definitely, no one would think that they are in love.

No one would ever guess a thing about them, and Jim has to admit that it's because there's very little to guess.

...

 _Be careful_ , he tells himself, and then he laughs without humor, alone in his dimly lit quarters, because the time to be careful was in a bar in Iowa, many years and parsecs ago.

...

"What are you doing here?"

She doesn't bother lifting her eyes from any of the three PADDs she's simultaneously working on.

Jim doesn't get it. It's a freaking rec room, not a library. Why do people come here to do work, if not to guilt-trip other people who don't think of work-life balance as the worst thing since the Klingon empire, he will never understand.

Still, the set-up reminds him of all those years spent harassing Nyota at the Academy, and it makes him smile a little.

"Hey. It's my ship, too." He says mildly, smiling as he takes a seat across from her.

"I meant, it's a little late."

"I was on beta." He doesn't point out that it's late for her, too.

"Ah."

"And bored. And Scotty's on duty, Sulu's comming with Ben since for some weird frequency alignment black magic we're within range, and Spones is nowhere to be found, and if it were the sight would probably stunt my growth, so."

She lifts her head. "Spones?"

"Spock and Bones."

"Spones," she repeats pointedly, her lips curving a little.

It's nice, that he can make her smile.

He shrugs. "Yep. That's how I refer to them in my head. And elsewhere, too. I mean, it's not as if they're separate entities anymore."

He can tell that she's trying not to laugh. Then she loses the battle and starts giggling. "Did you just…portmanteau them?"

"I would argue that they portmanteaud themselves when they started being attached at the hip."

She covers her mouth with her hand, but he can still see the mirth in her eyes. "Oh god. Do they know?"

"Are you kidding? I have no interest in being simultaneously hypo-ed _and_ nerve pinched."

"Yeah. Yeah, that would happen. Good thinking."

"Thanks. Years of protecting myself from those two, and all that."

Nyota's shaking her head almost fondly. "They are together all the time, aren't they?" She looks back at her PADD. "Spock was never liked that with me." She plays with her ponytail for a moment, looking pensive, and for a moment Jim wonders if she's sad. If he made her sad. He doesn't think so, but she's as opaque as ever to him, and really, he doesn't want he to be sad. The opposite. Really. "Nor I with him, I don't think."

Nyota's teeth bite into her lower lip, and nope, he doesn't like this.

"Hey." He leans across the table to tug at the sleeve of her uniform, and she narrows her eyes at him in response. "I think we're on the same rotation for shore leave tomorrow. Let's hang out."

"No way. For once we're on an M-class with temperatures between twenty and thirty degrees." She looks around, and even though the closest person is sitting at least five tables over, she still lowers her voice a little, and adds. "I'm not gonna spend my leave in bed."

"Not it bed." He loads his words with a little more indignation than he really feels. "Let's do stuff."

She looks at him suspiciously. "Like a date?"

 _Yes_. "No. Like hanging out."

"Are you crazy? We'd kill each other."

"Not true!"

"Right. _I_ would kill _you_."

"Okay, that's slightly truer. C'mon!"

She shakes he head, but at least she's smiling now. "I don't think we'd be able to agree on a activity that is enjoyable for the both of us if our life depended on it."

"Hey. You don't know what I like."

"You like getting wasted."

"First of all, you like getting wasted too, possibly more than I do. And, I like other things, too. Some of which you also like."

"You have no idea what I like." _Except in bed_ , she means. But somehow he thinks that saying _you like me going down on you until you can't think anymore, and when I don't stop even though you beg me to, and you like it when I fuck you slow and deep while licking your nipples, and I'm pretty sure you don't mind having my cock in your mouth_ , yeah, might not conducive to furthering his agenda.

All this diplomatic training he's been getting is doing wonders.

He raises his eyebrows. "I've known you for years. I know what you like to do in your downtime. I could describe your ideal day to the millisecond."

She sits back in her chair and looks at him, all patient condescension. "Go on, then." She gesticulates graciously, inviting him to proceed.

He opens his mouth and—his mind blanks.

Completely.

 _It's kind of like a white void room,_ Gary told him once. _You know, the way it happens when you read the first couple of questions on a quiz? You look into your head and there's nothing. It's all shit you've studied, shit you know, but you can't find it in there._ Gary had stared at Jim, waiting for a nod of recognition, which Jim had eventually given without having a clue what Gary was talking about. But that's his gift, Jim guesses. Not the genius IQ, but the ability to improvise. To think quick on his feet, always, no matter what.

To bullshit his way through life.

"Well." How does one buy time, again? "We both know that ideally you'd rather to be working—" She rolls her eyes, right as he feels some semblance of coherent thought kicking, alive again inside his head"—But it's not a possibility, so on your ideal day it would be raining."

She stills. Nothing changes in her pose or her expression, except that she freezes. Jim's not even sure how he knows.

"Not just a regular rain, it's one of those, 'if I walk ten steps, even with an umbrella, I'll be soaking wet' type of rains, so you just have to stay inside—which happens to be on the bajillionth floor of some building with a ridiculous view of the bay— and read under the covers, real, forest-killing books. And you don't choose something new, you choose something that you've read a trillion times and know by heart, 'cause it's one of those days. But maybe you read it in, I don't know, Russian. And you find so many little things that you hadn't quite noticed in the other nine languages you read it in, which delights you.

"At three PM or so your stomach begins to growl, and you would starve to death rather than preparing something or eating replicated food, but you're in luck, because there's someone to take care of that, someone who actually likes to cook. And he whips up something simple, like a sandwich, but also a little weird, like, I don't know." Jim shrugs. "Pear and brie. There's a side salad. With lots of fancy nuts and strawberries and probably avocado, which incidentally is gross."

He winks. She doesn't react.

"So this dude who made lunch for you—or, um, girl, whatever," he amends, "is actually big on personal space, and on reading, too, and on quiet, so you end up sitting next to each other with your books and then maybe you take a nap together, and magically you don't wake up feeling like your brain was sucked out of your skull. I know, unrealistic, anyway. It's not raining anymore, though there's that post-rain vibe, and you decide to go out for a walk, and it's sunset, and there isn't really anything going on, you know? Just other people walking around, and as you wander around you decide to catch a holo, and it's something old, maybe some twenty-second century comedy since that's the golden age, really, and when you get out it's chilly so you find a nice, cozy warm place for dinner—I'm thinking ramen—and talk about what your favorite jokes were and how they are still so relevant today and use them as a key to interpret the current geopolitical situation. It's fun. By the time you head back it's midnight, which of course means that it's technically the following day so I'm not gonna get into what you do once you get home, but let me tell you: you don't think about work once, because you're relaxed and the company is great and you just don't have time for it."

It would be great if she said something now. Because Jim just talked for about five minutes straight and is even a little out of breath, so any feedback would be nice. But Nyota doesn't say anything, not for a long time. She just looks at him with an odd air of immobility, and it becomes a little unbearable.

"So, did I pass? Can we hang out tomorrow?"

She shifts then, and smiles at him, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "You know what? You were right about something." She gathers her PADDs and stands, taking the time to push her chair under the table. "I'd rather be working, anyway."

And then she's elsewhere. Like she always is.

...

"Hey," he tells her with a smile, shoulder propped against the bulkhead right outside her quarters, and when it's obvious that she's planning to close the doors again, because the corridor is way too trafficked for him to be here for _that_ , he puts his hand on the sensor. "Wait—wait! I have something to ask you!"

"No, I don't want to hang out on shore leave." She bats his hand away, and he knows full well that she's being nice and could easily break his arm if she wanted to.

"I want you to meet someone."

It buys him a couple of seconds, at least. "I am not going to have a threesome with you an someone else, I told you when you were seeing Gaila _and_ I told when I was seeing Spock, so—"

"No, I—That was a joke, mostly—and this person…she's a friend. She's Commander Madeline Singh—you must have heard of her, she's a bit of a comm officer legend—"

"I know who Doctor Singh is." Right. Nyota probably has her picture in her wallet. "How do _you_ know her? Isn't she a bit old to be your type."

She's not, actually. Or wasn't a few years ago, when they— _anyway_.

"She's a good friend of my mom's. Anyhow, she's the head of Starbase 173 now. And she's gonna be on the planet this afternoon. So, I thought maybe you'd like me to introduce you. She said she'd be up for it. You could ask her how she ended up being a starbase commander, if you're still interested, since her career pathway is pretty is pretty similar to yours…"

He trails off, because she's looking up at him like he just told her that Linear A has just been deciphered and would she like to be the one to go through a billion tablets and translate them?

"Oh my god."

"Are you okay?"

"Oh my god. Really? You'd introduce me?"

"I—Of course. It's not, like, a prank. It wouldn't be very funny, and my pranks are always incredibly funny. Always."

"Oh my god."

"Yeah. I'll tell you more, I don't even have to be there. I'll introduce you guys and then make myself scarce, since whatever you guys discuss is likely to be ridiculously boring—"

He doesn't expect the hug.

He doesn't expect it and he's not sure what to do when her arms wrap around his neck and her torso pushes against his chest, and even though he's been inside her more times that he could count by now, even though he's let her play his body and take him apart down to his atoms, he can't help his hands dangling uselessly at his sides, any response completely beyond him.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she tells him when she's back on her heels, and he thinks, incomprehensibly, that this is going to be the best shore leave.

Ever.

...

"Are you wearing…"

Jim's wearing his uniform—a newly replicated yellow shirt because he ripped another one two days ago, but she shouldn't be able to tell since they all look the same, which is the point of a uniform—and his fatigues pants, and his boots, so he just continues doing what he always does _before_ , which is standing in front of her dresser and emptying his pockets of his comm, and his clearance badge, and that weird tool that he just confiscated from Scotty and _god_ , when did he become that mature person on board who has to prevent his officers from—

"You're wearing…"

He looks up, and she's pointing at her eyes, which confuses him for a minute.

She also looks flushed, for some reason.

What is she—

"Oh. You mean the glasses?"

She nods. "Since when do you, um, wears glasses?"

"Oh. Yeah. It's—since always, technically, I've always had these weird, I don't know, headaches, which are due to strain and not an actual eye problem that can be fixed with surgery, so Bones says I should wear them after shift to avoid—" He narrows his eyes. "Why?"

"Nothing. Nothing, just asking."

Is she actually blushing?

"If they bother you…I don't have to wear them while we—I can absolutely take them off—"

"No!"

 _No?_

"No?"

"No. I mean, of course, if you—I don't care, but if you—"

"Wait a minute."

"—I mean, they don't bother me or anything—"

"Wait. Wait. Are you into guys with glasses?"

"I—No—What are you—No. No. No, I—I don't—It's—What—No. No, I'm not."

His smile widens slowly. "Wow. You're being very eloquent."

She closes her eyes and—is this the most flustered he's ever seen them? Maybe? "I…"

Definitely.

"Hey." He takes off his shirt, making sure that the collar doesn't catch on the glasses frames. It's tricky, and he's not quite sure he manages to make it seem effortless, but she stares at him with her mouth slightly open all throughout, and when he starts walking towards her her breath has definitely sped up a little.

 _Holy shit._

"I'm not gonna judge you for your kinks. I mean, I'm the last person who…"

But she's not listening to him, her gaze shifting from his chest to his face—his eyes, it's his eyes she's obsessed with at the moment—and she's never been docile, or passive in bed, but the way she shoves him back on her bunk and then proceeds to use her mouth to—yeah.

 _Yeah_.

"I can't believe you have a fetish for glasses," he tells her afterwards, trying to slow his heat rate and regulate his breathing and maybe also remember who he is and what he's doing on a spaceship.

"I don't." She's still laying next to him, but pointedly looking elsewhere.

"Well, all evidence seems to point—"

"I just happen to like glasses."

"In a sexual way."

She groans and hides her face in her hands.

"Did you ask Spock to wear glasses while you—"

"What? No. No, that would be… weird." She concentrates on smoothing a corner of the sheets for a moment. "Plus, it's only hot if a guy actually _needs_ glasses," she mumbles.

He starts laughing. He can't help it. "Oh my god."

"Please."

"You totally have a glasses fetish. You find me hot because I look like a sexy librarian with a master's degree who would never dog ear a book and gets off on editing catalog records—"

"Please, stop."

"—and shushes loud patrons and uses the Dewey decimal system and boolean searches and—"

She must have figured that he won't stop on his own. That she has to force him. She must and that's why she climbs on top of him and shuts him up with—

It's technically called a kiss, Jim thinks. Except that the way she's does it better and different than any other kiss he's ever been part of, and what was he teasing her about?

"I hate you," she exhales in his mouth, and then she bites his lower lip just on this side of pain and shit, shit, shit—

"I—ah—know."

They're still naked, and she's still wet from earlier and from him and it's messy, more of a turn on than it probably should be, how smoothly he can slides inside and how tight she holds his shoulder and how her throat works on certain thrusts, when he hits _just like that_. It's slow, or slower, and Jim likes it, for once, that they're not mindless and frantic, and they can both _be here_. He likes it that they can say words, if not sentences, and that to his "I'm never gonna take off these glasses," she answers with a pinch on his left buttock, and a breathless giggle in his ear. He likes it, that she looks at him and says "your eyes are so incredibly beautiful," and that she adds "you really don't deserve them," and that it's his turn to pinch her and make her squeal a little and then they're laughing in each others' mouths, and when Jim comes it's slow, and long, and tidal, and it may not be the most intense orgasm he can remember, but it's by far the best.

...

"I repeat: all they want is peace."

"Oh, they do not want peace."

Jim tries not to sigh. "You Highness. Why would they have asked us to act as intermediaries, if they didn't want peace?"

"They are trying to trick us."

"They have assured the Federation—"

"To lull us into a false sense of security—"

"Now, that is unlikely, given that the Federation could—"

"So that they can come to our planet and then murder us." Jim is pretty sure that the following pause is for effect. "In our beds."

Jim frowns. "How would they even—"

Next to him, Nyota shifts a little. Jim turns for a moment, and his eyes catch hers. They're full of amusement.

Somehow, the whole mission is bearable again.

He takes a deep breath.

"As I was saying, they have assured us that _all_ they want is peace."

...

He feels his eyes widen, in pleasure and surprise, when he sees her standing in the entrance of his cabin.

She's wringing her hands anxiously, though, which he finds he doesn't much like.

It's been well over three years since the mission has begun, and she's never been here before. Not to fuck, not to hang out, not to give an urgent report. Not even when she used to be with Spock, and since the very start of the mission he and Spock have been in each other's quarters so often that whenever Jim misplaces something it's almost a given that Spock's going to find it somewhere in his dirty laundry in the following couple of days.

Spock, of course, never misplaces anything.

"Hey." He smiles at her, running a hand through his hair. He's pretty sure there's a stain of tomato sauce somewhere on his t-shirt. His very white t-shirt. Oh, well. "Are you lost? The fresher's over there." He points to five doors down.

She turns to that direction.

"No, I—Wait, isn't that McCoy's room?"

"Maybe. I think Spock's in there, too." Jim wiggles his eyebrow. "I interrupted them earlier, so it'd be great if you could do it too and join me on their shit list."

She sighs, and it makes him smile harder, because when she's exasperated at least she's not anxious.

"Please tell me you rang the doorbell."

"I _could_ tell you, but it would be an inaccurate representation of what happened."

She presses her hand on her forehead and laughs softly while staring at her feet, and here it is, one of those moments, in which he's briefly reminded that on top of being the best comm officer in the fleet and the best of all of them, she's also ridiculously pretty, and she'll always be out of his league.

"Did you want to…" he gestures vaguely with his thumb "…come in?"

"No!" She shakes her head, and the movement is a little wider than necessary. "No. I just wanted to make sure… Christine said you were unconscious when you beamed up, and…"

It takes him a minute, to realize that she's not going to finish that sentence. "It was nothing. The natives were dead set on sacrificing Sulu to their spider goddess or whatever, and we had to tell them no, and then they…" Did something that cracked about nine of his ribs at once, dislocated his shoulder, and stripped a whole lot of skin from his left butt cheek. Business as usual. He waves a hand dismissively. "I'm fine."

She gives him the once over, somewhat shyly, and then nods. "Right. I can see that."

"Yep."

He can't think of one more thing to say that wouldn't make him sound crazy, or ridiculous, or crazy _and_ ridiculous. _I'm glad you were concerned. I'm truly, unironically honored you remember that I existed. I like it when you think about me._ It's all true, of course.

"Are you sure you don't want to come in?"

She shakes her head, again, this time less frantic. "No. I just… I'm glad you're okay." A small smile. "Good night."

He nods. "Good night, Nyota."

He stands between the doors, keeping the sensors engaged and watching her as she walks down the corridor. She's almost turned for the turbolift when she whips around.

"Hey, captain. There are bibs you can use, if you find it difficult to eat without making a mess all over yourself. They make them for adults, too."

That night, he sleeps like baby.

...

He plops down on seat next to hers in the officers' mess and points at her salad.

"Is that walnuts?"

"Yep."

"May I?" he asks.

She rolls her eyes, but she picks one out and puts in a napkin and then his tray.

He smiles. "Only one?"

"Mmm. I'll give you more if you ask in Illyrian."

"Ah—what was walnut in Illyrian? Rougav? Kougav?"

She burst out laughing. "Kaagaav."

"Kah-gahv." She starts laughing harder. He tries to pronounce it like she did, and again, and then a third time. Judging from the way she's cringing and trying to cover her ears it's either his worst attempt yet or very nearly.

"Oh, no. No. No no no."

"I can't do it. Ok, wait," he scrunches his eyes with effort. Tries once more.

"Oh my god. You really can't. You really just can't pronounce it."

She is part laughing, part shaking her head in disbelief, looking charmingly appalled.

He has to smile. "Hey, I'm not a comm officer. I'm doing my best."

She's—is she giggling? "Your best is _abysmal_. I've never heard anyone—"

"Oh, come on."

"—pronounce Illyrian sounds this—"

"Don't say it."

"—excruciatingly poorly."

"It wasn't that bad."

"It was _painful_ to listen to."

"It was average. I'm sure if you picked a random person off the street they'd be just as bad as I am."

They turn at the same time to look at Bones, sitting across the table from them. "Bones, show her that you're worse than I am."

"Don't worry, doctor, I doubt that's physically possible."

"Okay, Bones, show her. Avenge me."

Bones just keeps staring at them over his coffee mug, unusually quiet, something that looks a lot like speculation in his eyes.

...

The second time she comes to his room is to show him something—one hundred percent work related, and even Jim's not enough of a wishful thinker to tell himself that she made up an excuse just to come see him. Yet, a voice in his head that he's been silencing less and less tells him that a few months ago she might have just tracked down his yeoman, or waited until the following morning, or ambushed him in the gym.

"Stay," he says impulsively when she makes to leave, hoping to sound as if he hadn't been brainstorming ways to spend more time with her. Out of bed, that is.

She doesn't answer. She stiffens a little—maybe, it's hard to say, she controls shit like this very well, 'cause body language is a language like all the others, Jim guesses—and actually looks behind his shoulders for the first time, taking in his cabin.

It's a little messier than hers. But not that much. Not like at the Academy, for sure.

They could, hypothetically, in an alternate universe, if they absolutely had to, in there were no other choice, share quarters and be…compatible.

Jim guesses.

Not that he…

"Do you wanna go over the Comm Department evaluations?" he asks when he realizes that she probably will want a reason to stay. "If you have time. Now. Or, you know. Feel like it."

She doesn't hesitate half as much as he thought she would.

"Sure," she tells him, and steps in. And maybe he has to move dirty uniform pants from his guest chair to make room for her to sit, but she actually smiles and doesn't seem to mind.

"I, um, have tea."

She looks at him like he's a little slow.

"Of course. You have a replicator."

"No, I mean, I actually have the little bags with shit inside. Celery-mint-raspberry, or whatever?"

She tilts her head. "Since when you drink tea?"

He shrugs. "Hey, I try a shitton of new things everyday."

"Right." She sounds skeptical.

"Or I can replicate you some milk."

She is horrified. "Milk?"

"Yeah, that's what I usually have a night."

"You mean, you drink a glass of milk?"

"Yes."

"By itself?"

"…Yes?"

"Gross."

"Why is it—?"

"I'll have tea, please."

It's over ten minutes before he hands her a mug, after realizing that he has never made tea in his life, and for a few moments there he has no clue whether he can even pull it off—he's pretty sure you just dunk the little package in the boiling water, and why the fuck did he never pay attention all those times Spock made some in front of his eyes like a freaking video tutorial, and are we sure that he doesn't have to rip apart the baggy thing and pour the leaves directly into the mug first—, but then she takes the mug in both hands and inhales the steam and smiles wide, and he thinks that maybe all the angst was worth it.

"Mmmmm." She closes her eyes, and sinks a little into the chair, looking cozy and relaxed and he's fine. Really, he's fine.

Almost fine.

"So, who do you want to start from?"

...

"Bees and lobsters. Starts with an A."

"Animals."

She shakes her head. "Way too short."

"How many letters too short?"

"Mmm, a few. Three. The second to last is a D."

"Ah. Arthropods."

"Still too sh—no, wait, it fits!" She fist-bumps him when he holds up his hand, and then scribbles the word down with her stylus. "Ok, let's go back to the upper part. So, we still don't know who won the World Cup in 2156, right?"

"World Cup of what, anyway?"

"Football. Isn't that the only World Cup?"

"I don't know. Why should it be?"

"I always think of football when people say 'World Cup'"

"You mean soccer?"

"No, it's called football."

"You're so African."

"You're so Iowan."

"Hey. No insults. Anyway. Can't we just ask the computer?"

"Nope. But wait—7 down is alliteration, for sure."

"A what?"

"Alliteration."

"What's alliteration again?"

"Two adjacent words starting with the same sound."

"Like Captain Kirk?"

She smiles, pleased. "Yep."

"Competent Captain Kirk. Completely cool Captain Kirk."

"Crazily cocksure Captain Kirk'."

"Hey. Utterly unfair Uhura." She's laughing now. He's smiling, too. "Nasty Nyota. Lying lieutenant."

"You're terrible."

Jim wiggles his eyebrow. "Terrible Tiberius?"

She's shaking her head now, still chuckling, writing down alliteration, which, really, Jim would never have guessed is spelled _like that_ , it just doesn't make any sense, when he lifts his eyes and notices Spock sitting right in front of them, a curious expression on his face as he brings his fork to his lips.

...

"You and Nyota," Spock says, and doesn't continues, just stares at Jim with those penetrating, scarily perceptive eyes, and Jim thinks that a year ago a sentence without a properly conjugated verb would have been comparable to murdering selhat cubs for Spock, that Bones' influence is terrible, and that those two need to be forcibly separated as soon as possible.

Yesterday, ideally.

Jim holds his defensive crouch. "Nyota and I, what? We both exist in this universe? We both have great hair? We should refer to you as Smock from now on?"

"Are currently engaged in a romantic relationship," Spock continues, and it makes Jim lose his grip and drop the lirpa, which in turn startles him and makes him jump back and stumble a little over the hem of the workout mat. Spock remains still, spine perfectly parallel to the rod of his lirpa.

"No, I—What are you talking about?" Jim attempts, trying to focus on anything but Spock—straightening the hem of his t-shirt, running a hand through his hair, scratching his cheek with his palm, boy, he really needs to shave. But it's a weak show. Unconvincing. And Spock is unbeatable when it comes to staring the truth out of Jim.

Of anyone, really.

"Fuck. We're not… We're just… I dunno. Not _romantic_. It's messing around, I guess." Oh, _god_. Spock's his best friend. Currently screwing his other best friend. And Jim's _probably_ lying to him. And Spock and Nyota used to— "Can we just not…talk about this? Ever?"

"Of course," Spock says, but he doesn't move, and fuck him, because he's also quite good at staring the silence out of Jim.

Damn him.

"You know, of the two of you, I was so fucking sure that Bones would realize it first." Jim wonders if his expression is as pained as he feels.

"He did realize it first." Spock looks a little sheepish. "He though it best not to…interfere."

"Bones? Really?" Spock nods, and Jim shakes his head. "What's up with all these boundaries? That's not who we are."

"Atypical behavior, I must agree." Spock picks up Jim's lirpa and hands it to him. At least it gives Jim something to do with his hands.

"Is this… weird?"

Spock cocks his head. "Weird?"

"Your ex and stuff."

"Ah. No. It is not… weird." Spock repeats the word gingerly, like it's ancient Minoan or something. Which he probably speaks fluently, anyway. "Nyota interrupted our relationship three point two years ago, and with valid reasons to do so."

"Oh." Jim takes a moment to digest the whole thing. "I didn't know… Okay. So I guess you're gonna tell me that if I break her heart you'll pummel my face? Make her suffer and you'll kill me dead? One wrong move and you'll skullfuck me?"

It's meant to be amusing. Because Spock finds shit like this amusing usually, even though it's a bit of an open secret and they all pretend not to know that. But Spock is clearly not amused, not even a little bit, and he just studies Jim, concern plain in his eyes.

"Should the outcome of this arrangement differ from your... wishes, I would be glad to…" This is weird. Spock never talks like this, with inappropriate pauses and heavy hesitations. "You know where to find me, Jim."

...

He realizes a maybe a second before approaching her that he's probably a little more drunk than he thought he was.

But then, he always is.

Then again, maybe it's the music, or that everyone around him seems to be in a great mood, and he managed to beat Spock to a very public game of strip chess—Bones was not happy, or on the other hand it might be that he was _very_ happy, it's hard to say with him.

"What are you doing?" She looks around as soon as she feels his arms around her, but she's probably to buzzed to work herself into being really nervous about this. She circles his wrists with her fingers and stiffens a little, but doesn't shove him away, which has to count as a win.

She's probably a little more drunk than he thought she was, too.

"Relax. Everyone's wasted and I danced with Janice once and with Marlena like four times." He spins her around in his arms. "It would be weirder if I didn't dance with you, too. Lieutenant."

His hands slide down her back and he half—one quarter—expects her to say no, but the atmosphere in the room is so loose that it might just be a physical impossibility.

"Were they slow dances?"

She's smiling up at him. She's ridiculously beautiful, really.

"Well, no. But only because there were no slow-dances in the wonderful playlist I made."

"This song feels slow."

"Yeah, I think Chekov hacked into the computer to get a chance to romance that Orion ensign he's currently making out with."

She laughs softly. "Good for him. It's his birthday after all."

He spreads his hand between her shoulder blades, and her body presses against his a little bit tighter.

"Good for you, too. You get the Jim Kirk slow dancing experience."

Even though what they're doing is barely dancing, since he's a pretty shitty dancer.

He's a mediocre swayer, though.

"I'm surprised it doesn't involve ripped uniform shirts or diplomatic accidents."

"Oh, it does. Just wait for it. Space jumps, too."

She lets her forehead rest on his collarbone and chuckles.

He wonders if she can hear his heart thrum.

"It was a nice party," he says.

"It was."

"Still is."

She lifts her eyes smile. "Still is."

...

It goes well enough, for long enough, and he settles in it deep enough, that he manages to be taken off guard when it all goes to shit.

It is, of course, mostly his fault.

Or hers.

Maybe both, because _if_ they have began being a little less careful—nothing like making out on the bridge or holding hands in the corridors, because Nyota would castrate him on the spot, but there might have been…instances. Jim being late to meetings because he was busy kissing Nyota's throat in a nook in engineering. Or a lingering kiss on the entrance of her quarters one morning, after a particularly excellent night, and maybe he didn't feel like going back to his cabin and change his uniform and shower away the previous hours, and her smell, and this thing they do, but she didn't seem too eager, either, he hands slipping underneath his uniform and her fingers warm, she always feels so warm—

Well, _if_ they have began being a little less careful, it's probably not just Jim's doing.

And starships, well… deep space can be uneventful as fuck, with only lightning-quick bursts of near-deathly excitements, and they've been out of comm range for weeks now, with very little news except from the outermost starbases, which are really boring anyway, and the crew… the crew has to have something to talk about, and the comm officer and captain getting in on provides what's all in all a relatively harmless topic.

With less than harmless consequences.

She hears of it, of course, before he does. Which is how it's not clear to him initially, why for a couple of days she won't talk to him outside of the bridge or she'll hesitate to meet his gaze, and it's not a problem, he knows what personal space is, maybe they've been kind of regularly spending time together recently, and he thought it was _nice_ , but it's not like she owes him anything, not at all, and there are five million other things that he should probably be—

"It's all over the ship."

Jim sputters. "I—I don't—What—"

"Dear god." Bones is staring at him, appalled. "You're supposed to be one of the foremost diplomats in the Federation. We are all fucked."

"I don't even know what—"

"Listen, Jim. You know me. I was never going to mention this, since I like to mind my own business." He completely ignores Jim's snort. "But everyone on the ship's talking about the two of you. So you're gonna have to make a decision."

Which is how he finds himself outside of Nyota's doors, and it doesn't escape him that something like this, Jim loitering in the corridor right out her cabin at strange hours, is probably what got them into this mess to begin with.

"Hey." she doesn't seem particularly happy to see him, but then again, in the past couple of days she hasn't seemed particularly happy to begin with, so Jim doesn't take it personally and walks in when she moves to the side.

"Hey." He tries not to look at the bed. Or the dresser. Or the couch. Last week they watched one of Jim's holovids, because apparently they both have a guilty-pleasure thing for Andorian action movies, and halfway through she leaned into him and he slipped his arm around her waist, and whenever she'd say something about how a chase like this would be a physical impossibility on any M-class planet—channeling Spock a bit, maybe, but she's technically correct—he'd feel her voice vibrate through his chest.

"I didn't realize until Bones…I'm sorry."

She sighs. "It's not your fault. I—It's a mess."

He runs his hand in the hair at the back of his head.

"Yeah. It sucks. I mean, I know we didn't… But, there's nothing to be worried about, I don't think."

She rolls her eyes. "Easy for you to say."

It kind of is, in a way. He's the higher—highest—ranking officer, so definitely not the one who stands to lose the most. "I know. But the frat regs—no one cares. Everyone knew about my parents, and even you and Spock were in a relationship for years."

"That's different."

"Well, Spock might not be captain but he's still a full commander and the first officer, and he—"

"No, no." She waves her hand. "That's not what—it doesn't matter."

He frowns. "What is it then?"

"Nothing."

"Nyota. C'mon. I'm part of this, too."

She shakes her head. "That was different. Spock and I were in a relationship, but you are I are not, and this whole thing could—it could be construed as me having sex with you for advancements or recs or a better position or any other type of—" She breaks and sighs deep. "It's okay. It's probably fine."

The first thing Jim thinks is, "Right," and almost says it out loud. Nyota's not prone to panicking or unreasonableness—no one in Starfleet it, not even Bones—and this is probably the closest she's gotten to it in a while, and it's about her career, which is understandable, all considered. Nyota doesn't owe him anything, and they were clear about this from the very beginning, that it would be just sex, and what she said is absolutely correct, except that—

Except.

"That's not true, though, right?" he says, and he feels it bloom inside his chest.

He never gets angry. Never.

He gets annoyed, and stressed, and exasperated, and tired, but he never lets himself get _really angry._

For a good reason.

She looks at him like he's crazy. "Of course it's not, I never for a second expected that you—"

"I mean, that we're not in a relationship."

She stiffens and closes into herself before he can he can even blink.

"We discussed—"

"Nyota. Come on." He laughs, and it sounds bitter to his own ears. He doesn't much like it. "Don't be disingenuous. We _are_ in relationship."

"We're not. We—This—" she moves her hand between them "—is not a relationship. As we discussed. Maybe for you having sex with someone more than twice means being in a relationship, but—"

"Hey. That's low."

She wraps her arms around her waist a stares at a spot behind hid head. "I don't want to be in relationship."

And yeah.

He really should _never_ get angry.

"You mean, you don't want to be in a relationship _with me_. You were fine being in one with Spock." His tone his harsher that he wants it to be.

"No, that's not it," she replies, but it sounds a little weak. And she must notice this herself. "This is not—You—People discuss—they _decide_ that they are in a relationship, and we never did. So this is... not."

"Okay. Fair." He crosses his arms on his chest. "Define relationship for me."

"What do you—What do you even mean?"

"C'mon, you're a linguist. Tell me what being in a relationship means."

"I don't know. People who spend time together. Out of bed. Outside of work hours."

"You mean, people who have all their meals together? And watch vids together? And work out together, and—"

"No, that's just—People who talk, then! About important things. And life goals. And the future."

He could probably scoff, or just plain laugh in her face at this point. He settles for lifting one eyebrow and staring at her. Spock has taught him so many things in the past few years, but this move. It always flusters people. It flusters Nyota, too, and she should know better.

But she's clearly not at her best.

"And they are monogamous. It's not—Jim, it's not as if I'm not aware that you're sleeping your way through the galaxy."

"Am I?" He asks softly, feeling his lips curve into a small smile, and her eyes widen for a moment. Then she presses her fingers on her temple and looks at her shoes, and he feels his anger dissolve, turn into something else.

It's been a long time coming, this conversation, but now they're talking, finally, _talking_ , and it's out here, and hopefully, _hopefully_ —

"No. Jim. No. I'm sorry, but no."

"Nyota—"

"No."

"Okay. No." He keeps his tone patient. "Why not?"

"You're not—Jim, we barely get along."

"We barely _got_ along. Years ago. When we were _kids_. And even then—I'm not the person I was, and neither are you."

She shakes her head. "This is not what I…"

"What you?"

"…I don't know. Planned."

"Planned. Right. Your ten year plan."

She ignores him. "This is just… a thing. A thing we do. Because it's convenient."

"Oh yeah, it's extremely convenient to have sex with your boss who's also your ex and your ex' new boyfriend's best friend. And their boss. I mean, there aren't other five-hundred people on board, most of whom would not only love dating you, but they'd also be absolutely fine with a no-strings-attached relationship, not to mention that they're not anywhere near your chain of command. You have to enter a relationship with your captain, who obviously has feelings for—"

"Don't—No. Don't—you said that—no." She swallows. "Don't say that."

He just looks at her, and when he talks his voice is low and quiet.

"I have said it already, Nyota. I've said it…a lot of times. In a lot of ways."

"Well." She exhales. "Well, if you've said it, I haven't heard it. Nor I want to."

"Then you can be pretty fucking deaf, for being a comm officer." He wants to swallow the words back immediately, before they're even fully out of his stupid mouth. "I—sorry. Sorry. It was… Sorry."

She's not even looking at him anymore. Her voice is empty, flat.

"Please, leave."

"Nyota—"

"Just—leave."

"Okay." He nods. "Okay," and then he's gone.


	4. Chapter 4

When he receives the notification, she hasn't talked to him in days. A few more of those, and it will be weeks.

His PADD pings halfway through alpha, and Jim balances the report he's been reading on the left sidearm of his chair to pull up the message, hoping for something slightly more entertaining than a breakdown of the geological features of the smallest moon of Vega 9. The first thing he notices is her name, and isn't that funny, how the letters on the page catch his attention first, just like her presence did all those years ago at the Academy, and then on the Enterprise, and talk about time passing and things staying exactly the—

Lead settles in his stomach as soon as he realizes, the word 'Transfer', the word 'Approval', and other words, many of them, all making their way from his brain directly into his chest.

He reads the message once, twice, skipping and stumbling through sentences and dates, and then a third time, forcing himself to calm down long enough to make sense on the words.

Then, his head spinning, he turns around to look at her, finds her working silently at her console.

She never looks back.

...

"Captain," she tells him after he wishes her all the best and makes to go somewhere, _anywhere_ else. "Jim. It's not personal. I just think the Antares will be a better fit. For me." He hands are wrapped tight around her waist, just like they were the last time they talked. "At this juncture."

He just looks at her and nods.

...

Despite common misconceptions, Jim is well aware that Vulcans are unable to read thoughts outside of a meld. He also knows that the message he received a few hours earlier from HQ was confidential, and reserved uniquely for him, and that Nyota wouldn't have discussed any of this with anyone on board before Jim was informed.

Which is why he's not quite sure how it is possible that Spock opens the doors of his quarters, takes a look at Jim standing in the corridors, and seems to just _know._

Maybe he's been expecting this all along. Maybe Jim's just an idiot. Maybe Vulcans have been fooling the Federation all along and they _are_ able to read minds. Still, Jim walks in, and without saying anything goes to sit on Spock's couch, elbows on his knees, and is silently thankful when Spock just sits next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

...

When he blinks awake he has no idea where he is, and Sulu is at his bedside, watching a holo on Tellarite swordsmanship with a degree of enjoyment one would expect from high quality pornography and no less.

"You're a nerd," Jim says, and he's surprised by how much his voice croaks.

"Shit." Sulu drops the PADD. "Jim, how are you? Let me call McCoy."

"I'm—water?"

"Of course, here you—"

"No water for anyone until I say so," Bones barks, barging in and taking the cup away from Sulu's and looking so pissed that Jim thinks that maybe right now being conscious might not be his best option. He shines something in Jim's eyes, pokes and manhandles him a little, and then relents. "Fine. A couple of sips."

Jim's hand is slow and uncoordinated, but he manages to hold the cup on his own.

"Spock?"

"He's _fine_ , that moron. Almost as dumb as you are, I swear to god," Bones says, and Jim suddenly feels a bit sorry for Spock. "Hendorff's fine, too."

"How long—"

"Six days, you idiot."

"Oh." That's a record, even for him. "Well. At least I got a fortifying nap out of this."

"Oh, did you have sweet dreams? While I was trying to regrow your bronchial tissue and your overzealous immune system decided to attack every single—"

"Why are you mad at me? It's not my fault if—what even happened, anyway?"

Sulu and Bones exchange a glance.

Jim doesn't like it.

"Captain, you walked into an ambush. That we all kind of saw coming, anyway." Sulu's tone is cautious.

"Shit." Jim scratched the sleep from his eyes. "Did I?"

They both just look at him, Sulu mostly concerned, Bones concerned and pissed.

Jim was…tired, before the mission. Distracted. He's been— not at his best, but it's not—he just needs some time to—

He feels a sting in his neck.

"Ouch—"

"Jim, I'm knocking you out. Your lungs are not healed and you need to sleep at least twenty-four more hours."

Jim nods and it's stupid, because it's not as if he has a say in this. The drugs are already in his body and he's fading quickly, and really it's for the best. He's been awake for a minute and his head's already aching, a dull, throbbing pain behind his temples, his shoulders and neck are killing him, and he's not sure he wants to interact with Sulu, certainly not with Bones, not with the way they're both staring at him, so he just lets his head sink into the pillow and fall to the side. On his bedsides table, behind a tray of hypos and a tricorder, there is something that looks a lot like three black hairpins. It makes Jim think of—cool fingers wrapped around his wrist, and hands running gently through his hair, a hint of nails on his scalp, a palm cradling his cheek over the days worth of stubble—

Everything goes black.

...

She comes to see him once, when he's still being held prisoned in MedBay— _goddammit, Jim, you're being monitored, you drama queen_ —and forbidden to do any real work. Fake work, too.

When he lifts his eyes from the book he's reading she's standing by the door, looking at him like she's not sure whether she wants to come in or run for the hills, and for a moment he wonders if two seconds later and she'd have been gone, Jim none the wiser of her presence.

"Hey," he tells her.

She smile at him. It's a hesitant—no, a _sad_ smile. "Hey."

He's not quite sure what to say to to her. The first thing that comes to mind is "Long time no see," but he regrets it as soon as it's out of his mouth, the last few weeks of silences and averted gazes suddenly a heavy presence inside the room, resulting only in him playing with the corners of his book and Nyota shuffling her feet, still hovering by the door. "How are you?"

"Jim. That should probably be my line." She laughs a little and comes to sit next to his bed, lifting her hair free when it catches between her back and the chair. Jim wonders how many time she has done that, in the six days he was unconscious. It looks like it might have been quite a few.

Her transfer is effective in six days. They will rendezvous with the Victoria, which will head for the Beta quadrant, where the Antares is.

Six days, thirteen hours and twelve minutes.

The tours of the Antares and the Enterprise don't match, since the Enterprise's mission is unique in its five-year format. The known universe is large enough that running into other Starfleet officers by chance is a statistical impossibility—not to mention that the whole point of Jim's career is to venture our of the known universe. Where no one has gone before. Where no one else _is_. He and Nyota probably won't meet again for years, decades, unless they want to. Unless they make plans to.

Which, right now, doesn't seem to be all that likely.

"Well. I'm great," he lies. And then, because it's her, because she knows, of course, "I mean, all considering. I almost have two lungs, and Chapel smuggled me a burger while Bones locked himself in his office to make out with Spock."

She smiles. "Maybe they were having a work meeting."

"Oh, sure. I always lock myself in my office with someone from a completely different department before writing a report." He realizes immediately what he just said and wants to smash his own head repeatedly against the wall. "Oh shit. I didn't mean—"

"No, no. It's fine. It did… It did, um, happen, and I don't want to…" She takes a deep breath, and when she talks her voice is steady, and if she isn't quit looking at him, at least it's in his general direction and she seems to be _trying_. He thinks. "I am really sorry for the past few weeks. For asking for the transfer without telling you about it first. I really wish I had talked with you about it."

Jim nods, hoping distractedly that the machines he's hooked up with are not recording his vitals. Bones might notice something weird with his heart rate. "I think, maybe—" he takes a deep breath, repositions himself on the bed, then once again, with little change in his overall level of comfort. "I'm really sorry if I pushed… I understand why you wanted—why you _want_ to leave, and that what we had an agreement, and…" He should really be looking at her, while he says this. He must, so he lifts his eyes, and forces his hands to stop fidgeting and rest on his sides. "I'm sorry, too. I guess it's all I want to say."

She nods.

He nods back, and wonders if this is the end of the conversation. If this is the last thing he'll tell her, not counting the formal, stuffy words that he'll speak in the transporter room next week as the captain of the Enterprise, Spock standing stiff by his side, Scotty looking at them from the control console, and Chekov and Sulu probably sulking somewhere behind him, because Nyota has always been their favorite. For some reason, it seems wrong. Obscene.

"It's not… I'm not trying to justify myself, because we're probably way past that, anyway. But you should that…" He inhales. "I've always felt that I was… better. A better person. When you were around." He runs his fingertips over the edge of the book, open facedown in his lap. It's a good one. He knows she's read it, too, even has a copy here, on board. "Which is probably how almost a decade of uninterrupted harassment came to be, come to think." He grins at her, and fervently hopes it looks more reassuring than it feels. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'll miss you."

The understatement of the century.

"Jim—"

"And it's not one of those situations where you have to say it back, I promise—"

"Jim, I—"

"Why the hell are you sitting up, Jim?"

He startles and turns to look at Bones, so quick that he pulls a muscle in the process. "You said I couldn't get up, not that I couldn't _sit_ up."

"No, I said stay the fuck down."

"Why can't I sit up? I'm sitting up now, I feel fine—"

"When you're able to regrow your organs on your own you can go on the Tour de France, for all I care. While you are my patient you do what I—"

"Children," Nyota stands with a grimace, hands in front of her body as if to protect herself from both Jim and Bones. "Captain, it's good to see you… alive and well. Though," she turns to smile placatingly Bones, "I am sure he is on the brink of death and needs a million years of rest, so I'll make myself scarce."

She is at the foot of his biobed when Jim calls her.

"Lieutenant." Ignoring Bones' grumbling he leans over and reaches for his bedside table, grabbing two of the hairpins he noticed there two days before. "You're forgetting this."

He drops them in her open palm, making sure not let his fingers touch her palm.

She stares at them for a moment, and Jim wonders what she's thinking.

There is, of course, a third one, hidden in the last page of the book he's reading.

Jim hopes she doesn't know.

...

She doesn't visit, after that.

Then again, he is discharged the following day with explicit orders not to set foot on the bridge. Jim goes anyway—but not during Alpha, because that's when Bones' spies are lurking around—and Spock's good at holding the fort but this is Jim's ship and he always needs to know and act and _do_ , which means that staying in his room isn't really cutting it. She's not around, though. She's probably in the comm bay, he thinks, arranging everything for her imminent transfer, and that's…fine. Absolutely fine.

It's going to be _fine_.

She'll leave, and it'll suck. But then it'll be okay, like it always is. Deep down he's always known that it was temporary, anyway, and yeah, maybe he's ten years or so late with this whole first love and first heartbreak thing, but it's a milestone everyone has to go through, or so he hears, and he's always sucked at timetables anyway. She's gonna transfer to the Antares, and for two, three, ten weeks it's gonna be weird and unsettling, to see McCarthy bent on her console during alpha — _not hers, not hers anymore_ —or take her seat for the weekly senior crew meetings— _not. hers_. McCarthy won't be as good a comm officer as she, and initially they'll all be disappointed in him for not being as quick and brilliant and precise and cool under pressure, and then, then they'll get used to him and they'll all click together like every good crew does, little by little.

It will become normal, that she's not around anymore. Initially the ship will feel both too empty and too crowded, and the rec room and the observatory decks won't quite make sense to him, but that will pass, too, and then the Enterprise will be the Enterprise again, and he will stop taking notice of dark hair and red uniforms and humming noises when he walks down the corridors.

There'll be others, and one who— _whom, Jim_ —he'll like more than the others, quite a lot, maybe as much as he liked her. This one will let herself like him back, and then there'll be talk of flowers and venues and kids and a place on Vega 8 for when they get old.

He'll remember _her_ , sometimes. Maybe. And he'll not be sad, because it's _fine_ , because—

The chime rings, and Jim hoists himself up from his bed, wincing slightly at the stabbing pain in his side. It's either Bones, or Bones and Spock, and Jim kind of wants to ask if it's normal that all his internal organs still feel like they're about to burst open, but he also doesn't want a ten hour long, half-metaphors half-insults sermon about how he should have just stayed under observation in MedBay for three more weeks, or not gone on the away mission at all, or maybe avoided joining Starfleet to begin with.

"Computer, open doors. Bones, I have something to tell you, but promise me you won't freak—"

It's not Bones at the door.

And really, it's sort of not at the door, either.

As soon at the gap is large enough she walks in, and he barely has time to step back to avoid her bumping into his terribly aching side, because she's so fast that the second he turns around to figure out where she's going she's already in the middle of his cabin, turning towards him but not quite looking him in the eyes.

"Nyota—"

She takes a deep breath and nods, mostly to herself. "Okay. Okay."

"Nyota, are you—"

"No. No, I—" Another breath. "Let me talk. I need to say this, and if you…" Her eyes catch his, and there is something… pleading, in them, something that makes him want to step closer, reassure her, maybe— "Please let me talk, okay? Just this once."

He tells himself to stay put. "Sure. Okay."

She inhales deeply.

"When I heard how badly you were injured…" She's looking down again, somewhere between her feet and Jim's. "The first thing I thought, was that the way we—the way I—" She stops abruptly and presses the tips of her fingers into her eyes. It takes several moment for her arms to wrap back around her waist, but when she starts again she is considerably calmer.

"I didn't want things…us, to just end like this. Above all, I don't want you believe that I think… poorly of you, that I don't think you're worthy of me or something equally ridiculous, because it—it just isn't true. The thing is…" She looks around the room, unseeing. "To me, to everyone, you have always been larger than life. At the Academy you were such an asshole—no, let me finish—and honestly so was I, and… What really drove me up the wall wasn't the dumbass, crazy stunts you pulled—well, not only that—but that you would _always_ get away with it. That people, and circumstance, and just plain luck would _let you_ get away with it. I always saw it as this huge personal affront, that Jim Kirk was judged with a different metric than all of us, that everything seemed to have to be custom-built for you and…" She takes one step in his direction. Jim's heart feels like it's lodged somewhere in his throat. "Now, after all these years, and everything that… Now I see how you—what you… and I'm sorry if—"

She runs her index and middle fingers under her eyes. Because she is—Jesus, she is _crying_ , and Jim is absolutely…

Horrified.

He moves towards her, but she holds one of her hands in front of her body, and he stops, feeling confused, and impotent, and—

"It was an honor, serving with you. Captain. And being your friend. And I truly—I truly wish I could…"

She doesn't finish. The tears are running down her face now, and he's not sure he can stand this. Actually, he's positive he can't. He's breathing too fast, and his lungs protest a little, still new and raw.

"What do you wish, Nyota?"

"Jim." He teeth bite into her lower lip. "Jim, I truly wish… that I could have that rainy day. With you."

It takes him a moment, to understand what she's referring to. Too long, really. But when he gets there, he feels it bloom warm and large, deep into his chest, something sweet and heavy and hopeful, and for the first time in _so long_ he feels like maybe—maybe…

"It was not a limited-time offer."

She just stares at him. "Really?"

"Yes. Yes." He must have walked towards her. He's not sure when, but she's in his arms, and he's holding her against his chest, the wetness of her cheek seeping through the material of his t-shirt. He feels—"Yes, Nyota, you can break my hear a million times, and still I'll—"

He voice is muffled in his shoulder when she interrupts him. "Don't—don't say that, please. I don't want to break your heart."

"Well, that might be a little too late—"

"Jim!" She punches him on his side. He hides his wince into her neck.

"Just kidding." Hi voice is muffled by her skin. "It maybe cracked a bit when I got your transfer request notification, but it's mostly all right."

She pulls back. "Jim, I felt so… I didn't know what do, and I requested the transfer, and I can't pull out—"

"I can. I can block it and say that I need you on board too much, and I fucking do, Nyota, we all do. We're terrified at the idea of you leaving." He takes her face in his hands, cups it in his palms. " _I_ am terrified. I didn't want to keep you here against your will, but… Ask me. Ask me to block it, and I will."

She just looks at him, her chest lifting up and down. She opens her mouth once and says nothing, tears spiking her lashes. Sliding down her cheekbones. He leans forwards to kiss them dry and Nyota's hands come up, circling his wrists.

"Please."

Relief and happiness swell inside him. "Thank fucking god." He feels his lips turn into a smile, and shifts until he's kissing her on the mouth, and she's kissing him back, and it's messy, and salty, and poetry. "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you—"

Her hand slips up to cover his mouth, and he kisses that, too. "Don't. Jim. I don't even know if I can…"

He takes her face in his hands. "I'm not asking you to promise me or—" He takes a deep breath, and his throat burns. "But if you're willing to try. Just…try. I really would…"

She covers his hands with hers, looking up at him.

And nods.


End file.
